In this coming of age story Matson presents us with Emily - a shy and awkward girl who has been the perpetual shadow of her best friend, Sloane - the outgoing one. I think this book is for the audience it intends it to be - a teen girl who can identify with our main character. However, I don't think this book translates well to the adult palette. 
 I had a really hard time with this book, I came to DNFing it almost 5 times but I kept going because I was able to download the audiobook. My dislike for this book can be attributed to 2 things: 
 1 - I am way to old to enjoy Emily's awkwardness. Usually I can appreciate the teen angst but the extreme of Emily's shyness left me frustrated. I lost my patience with her and the way she's written and hence I had a really hard time continuing this journey with her. It took me a full 4 days to finish a book that would've normally take me 2. 
 2- The pacing of this story is ridiculous. I don't think I can comprehend how a YA contemporary sits at 450 pages, most especially when while reading I felt like taking a red pen and crossing out chunks of this book that served as extra fluff or run-on descriptions of Emily's shyness like a sledge hammer over and over to the reader. (a classic example of a lot of telling not showing) 
 I would divide this book in 2 parts - the first 60-70% of this book could've have been reduced in nearly half. There's scene after scene that could have been deleted to employ a more cohesive narrative. There's also a lack of urgency in the general plot despite Emily claiming to be desperate for her best friend. Now, I don't need all plots to be urgent but I truly felt like chunk of the book were rather stagnant. 
 The last 40% of the book really picked up for me and I enjoyed most of it, Emily has changed in her journey, she became more a much more appetizing character and I was willing to go through this journey with her. The 2 stars are entirely for the last half of this book. Despite the pick-up at the end, I felt this book was very... vanilla. Tame and lacking in excitement. I felt like I was reading diary entries "today I woke up, went to work, was shy, spoke to someone, but it consisted of one word answers and long pauses and I didn't know what to do with my hands so I didn't do one of the things in my list, I miss my friend, end of day." 
 Despite the blatant flaws I found, I think this is a great teen book, I think they will enjoy it far more than I would and for that I will be gifting it to my friend's teen daughter. I think she will love this to pieces because she's the right audience for it.