I've had a hard time sussing out my feelings after finishing this book, so I wrote a pro and con list of what I liked and disliked:
Con's:
-Characterization of the "bad boys" was terrible. We know who is a good guy and a bad guy as soon as Wiseman introduces them, because the bad guys have "small slitty eyes and pink skin" or use offensive words to refer to others. While I find those terms really offensive, I also think this was a silly tool for characterization -- teenagers sometimes use inappropriate terms, and that doesn't automatically mean they're an irredeemable waste of space. To me, this was just a shortcut to suss out who the reader should disapprove of, and I don't think Wiseman's readers need the help.
-Charlie was lame. One of her friends, Sydney, is sexually harassed by some of the guys, and when Sydney publicly humiliates him in return, Charlie tells her friend that she's gone too far and become like him. Yeah. Having been sexually harassed in HS, I think Sydney was in the right -- but Charlie felt like the the mouthpiece of an educator about bullying. Charlie's unbelievable POV made me struggle to keep reading.
-Plotting. The synopsis isn't, in my opinion, what this book is really about. The bulk of it chronicles Charlie's freshman year of school, and the prank mentioned above doesn't happen until page 216 (of 279). I felt that the story dragged in places.
Pro's:
-Loved the secondary characters of Charlie's friends, Sydney and Nidhi. It was wonderful to read about girls being genuine friends as opposed to frenemies, even though Charlie certainly had some frenemies in her past.
-Unique depiction of high school. There are some untrustworthy adults and some very wise ones in this novel; the bulk of educators seem helpful and genuinely caring. While there are some unsavory elements to the school, overall, it seems like a pretty decent place. I liked that this high school wasn't the stuff of nightmares one sometimes reads about in YA novels.
-Realistic depiction of sexual harassment in HS. It's never named as such in the book, but without a doubt in my mind, a bunch of guys hassling a girl because she turned one of them down is classic sexual harassment (it's not just for the workplace anymore). I think it's realistic, anyway, because it mirrors my experience -- little torments that add up to misery, and adults that deny what's happening (in the book, Sydney is told that she should take the unkind attention as a compliment; for me, I was told, "Don't you think you brought this on yourself, by dating around the way you have?"). While it's not the focus of the book, I liked that this was addressed.
-Satisfying ending; happy, but not overpoweringly so. There's a note of conflict in the ending, but wrongs have been righted and love has been satisfied. What can I say? I love a happy ending.
I don't think this is a bad novel, at all, but I do think that some more attention to the elements I identified as cons would have made for a more powerful work.