July is all alone. Well, almost alone. She found her cat, Yolo. Everyone in town is gone. The houses are empty. The streets are quiet. Where is everyone? She’s left to figure it all out with one message that keeps popping up. GET TH3M BACK.

This book was a huge miss for me. I have given it a 3-star rating because I did enjoy my time reading it, but the last 5-10 pages ruined it all. I thought the writing style was interesting and the short chapters made it easy to turn the pages quickly. We jump back and forth between present and past tense throughout the book and I enjoyed that. I was so curious what the point of the story was. That’s what kept me reading. We were getting all of this info and I was so interested in how it was going to fit together. And then I got to the end… I felt betrayed. And not in the good way where you’ve loved the characters so much that whatever is happening hurts your heart… I felt betrayed, like I was tricked into reading a pointless story. That sounds harsh, but it’s how I felt. Others may be able to appreciate the message the author was sending with this story, but it wasn’t for me. I have read a few other books by Ally Condie and I enjoyed them, so don’t let this stop you from reading one of her books!

SPOILERS AHEAD!!! Keep reading if you’re interested in the details that led to me feeling like I’ve been bamboozled.

Through the whole book, we’re reading about July and how she is completely alone in her town, except for her cat, of course. Weird things are happening. She can’t drive past the town limits. Her diary that she threw into the river shows up in front of her. There are strange messages and clues appearing. I’m reminded of Damon and Bonnie being stuck in some alternate universe with only each other in The Vampire Diaries, if you’ve ever seen that show. We’re also reading about the past, so we gain a sense of July’s life as a runner on the cross-country team and her friend group dynamics and whatnot. All seemingly important. Surely this will all fit together nicely in the end. It will all make sense. Oh, how wrong I was. In the last couple of pages of the book, we basically figure out that July has had a mental breakdown of sorts and this has all been in her head!!! None of it was real. None of the clues mattered. She was feeling completely alone because she was depressed after being dumped by her boyfriend and then having a fight with her friends!!! The last few pages were a nice little moment for July where she decided she was going to let people back into her life (I think…) but what the heck? You mean to tell me that the people were all there this whole time? She really didn’t break into the principal’s office to see the high school’s security cam footage? Was she really going through her friend’s houses? Her ex’s dorm room? It was all a lie. Betrayed. Bamboozled. I was expecting more of a dystopian situation here. That’s what the summary of the book led me to believe. I realize mental health is a real issue and maybe if I knew that’s what this story was about, I could have appreciated it more.