Oh, boy... I was so determined that I wasn't going to give this book five stars. 
 I'm feeling very defeated at the moment. 
 I need some time to collect my thoughts before posting a full review. It's just... yup. 
 UPDATED 
 For months, I was bombarded with review after review of this book, all of them five stars. And while I wanted to read it, desperately, I also worried that it couldn't possibly live up to the hype. No way. There was absolutely zero chance that I was going to give this book five stars. I convinced myself that it was going to be a solid four stars, successfully squashing down any expectations that I might've had. 
 And of course, I was wrong! SO worth five stars. Although it didn't start out that way. The book is broken down into parts, and as I started the book, my thoughts were, "Meh." The writing was good, the character was interesting enough. I was just expecting the pace to be a little faster. I wasn't drawn in like I had hoped. Then I turned a page. 
 Suddenly I am thrown into a second character's POV. Then a third, and a fourth. And I fell in love! With the book, with the characters, with the writing style. You name it, I loved it. Cassie is everything I look for in my female characters. I can sympathize with her internal trust issues entirely, because I feel them too! Yancey is showing us just enough that we learn to second guess absolutely everything! Every plot point loops back on itself until your head is spinning. The writing comes full circle as well, as we see certain phrases being repeated throughout the different characters. It is perfectly subtle and brilliantly done. Don't read it too quickly or you may miss the symmetry of it all. 
 I think what set this book apart from others in its genre (of the ones I've read anyway. I can't speak for them all) is the overall sense of unease it creates. It made me very uncomfortable, which, while being a good thing, certainly created a hurdle that I had to jump. I had to come to grip with the fact that Cassie is human and she makes horrendously human mistakes. There were scenes that made me squirm, and I applaud any author who can achieve this kind of interaction, of understanding, between reader and characters. 
 And so, besides recommending it highly, I will also grudgingly give it five stars. Yancey earned every one of them. 
 [image error]