So this isn't exactly the cheeriest start to a book and I never really got to grips with why Willa wanted to off herself. Still, the author manages to lift the mood considerably by not really talking about Willa's intended suicide for the rest of the book and instead regaling us with the escapades and pranks that Willa and her new boarding school friends get up to.
The plot is pretty good, although I could kind of see where it was going in terms of Remy's problems.
I found it hard to actually identify with any of the characters, which was a bit of a hurdle for me as a reader. All the rich kids (like 90% of the characters) seem ultra-privileged, super-rich and don't have to go to classes if they don't want to. This was so utterly unlike my own high school experience that it just felt off-kilter. They got very tedious and I wanted Willa to tell them all (Remy especially) to bog off and when she didn't I wanted Willa to bog off for being just a doormat.
While I really like Andrea Portes' style of writing (Anatomy of a Misfit remains one of the most emotionally-affecting books I've ever read) this one didn't hit the mark as well as I'd hoped.
3.5 stars