You see it in all animals--the female of the species is more deadly than the male. 
 5 stars. 
 tw: sexual assault, graphic violence, animal abuse 
 Wow. Just...wow. I went into this book without much knowledge of what it was about, and came out the other end feeling devastated and unsettled but also understood. 
 This is a harsh book about realistic people. It shows the ugly underbelly of our darkest selves. It shows the ugliness within us, the darkest thoughts that everyone has but nobody admits to. 
 This is a book about how impossible it is to truly know another person, to understand what goes on in the parts of them that they choose to keep hidden. 
 I've spent my life waiting for the man who comes for me like one did for Anna, with hungry eyes behind the wheel and rope in the trunk. 
 Alex's striking voice hits you from the first page, with her matter-of-fact description of how she planned and executed the death of her sister's murderer. (this is not a spoiler btw, it's literally on the first page) She's got hella moral ambiguity and a sense of humor full of deadpan sarcasm, which makes her a fascinating and compelling narrator. 
 She's also incredibly relatable. Every woman and girl can understand Alex's anger, her fury, at both what was done to her sister and what she sees happen around her each day. We all know what it's like to be reduced to the shape of our bodies, to be seen as an object to be possessed, to hear the catcalls and whistles in streets and school hallways and have to clench our fists and jaws and compress the raw anger we feel into the backs of our minds. 
 Except Alex doesn't do that. She doesn't brush these things off, she confronts them head-on, and while I'm not denying that what she does is fucked up at times, it's also pretty fucking empowering. Alex does the things that everyone knows they should do, but when it comes down to it they're too afraid to speak up. She stops an attempted rape, and calls out a girl she's friends with for slut-shaming. Alex has a strong code of personal ethics that drive her desire to carry out her own justice, and it makes her both relatable and terrifying. 
 There were a few times--mostly towards the beginning--when I found Peekay pretty annoying, but she ended up having a pretty great character arc. I really enjoyed seeing her grow and learn to have confidence in herself without needing a guy to reinforce her self-image, as well as (view spoiler)[learning to forgive Branley, seeing her as human and helping her in a moment when she needed support (hide spoiler)]. She's a good person, generally polite and honest, but not an unrealistic goody-two-shoes. She has ugly thoughts sometimes, too, and McGinnis doesn't shy away from pointing that out. 
 Peekay is a solidly ordinary person. That makes her sound boring, I know, but she wasn't. There's something to be said for a writer who can make the ordinary seem unique and fascinating, and this book portrays the experience of being a teenager really well. The lust and love and insecurity and jealousy that the characters feel is raw and real. 
 I didn't care about Jack quite as much, but his story still felt pretty strong to me. He's your average, popular teenage guy, something that was made extremely clear in an early scene. On one of the first occasions that they meet, Alex gets into Jack's car and the only thing he can think of to say are a series of comments about her physical appearance. He does that typical guy thing where he gives repeated, unsolicited compliments that he thinks a girl should be grateful for--when in reality they just make us feel uncomfortable and annoyed. He doesn't really have the same character development and growth that Alex and Peekay had, so his static perspective on a lot of the issues the book addresses made for an interesting contrast to the girls's changing outlooks. 
 These three narrators' stories combine in a way that portrays teenagers and relationships and social issues REALLY WELL. Dating and fighting and parties and confrontations are awkward and difficult in real life, and we often do things we're ashamed of for reasons we can't quite understand. Sexual assault and the general attitudes towards/treatment of women were both prominent subjects in this book. Both were handled really well and in ways that didn't gloss over the acts themselves or their lasting impact on victims. In the case of sexual assault, there was definitely sensitivity towards reminding and reaffirming readers that it is never the victim's fault. 
 But boys will be boys, our favorite phrase that excuses so many things, while the only excuse we have for the opposite gender is women, said with disdain and punctuated with an eye roll. 
 Overall, the representation of female relationships in this book was generally pretty fantastic. Girls supported other girls in a wide variety of situations, and when they didn't do so they learned to see the error of their ways. I was disappointed by the way Branley (view spoiler)[tried to seduce Jack again at the end. I thought she'd started to grow as a character and it was more annoying than dramatic to see her regress to the same sexually manipulative person she was at the start of the book. (hide spoiler)] 
 The ending left me with ALL kinds of feelings, but I won't go into details. This was a very twisted, very real book, and one of the most important contemporary books I've read in a long time.