Four-Letter Word - Christa Desir

My rating: ⭐⭐

From the cover:

"Eight friends. One game. A dozen regrets. And a night that will ruin them all, in this high stakes gripping story of manipulation and innocence lost, from the author of Bleed Like Me.

Chloe Sanders has wasted the better part of her junior year watching her best friend Eve turn away from her for the more interesting and popular Holly Reed. Living with her grandparents because her parents are currently serving as overseas volunteers, Chloe spends her days crushing on a dark-haired guy named Mateo, being mostly ignored by Eve and Holly, and wishing the cornfields of Iowa didn’t feel so incredibly lonely.

But shortly after spring break, a new girl transfers to her high school—Chloe Donnelly. This Chloe is bold and arty and instantly placed on a pedestal by Eve and Holly. Now suddenly everyone is referring to Chloe Sanders as “Other Chloe” and her social status plummets even more.

Until Chloe Donnelly introduces all her friends to a dangerous game: a girls vs. guys challenge that only has one rule—obtain information by any means necessary. All the warning bells are going off in Other Chloe’s head about the game, but she’s not about to commit social suicide by saying no to playing.

Turns out the game is more complicated than Other Chloe thinks. Chloe Donnelly hates to lose. She's got power over everyone—secrets she’s exploiting—and she likes to yank their strings. Only soft-spoken Mateo is sick of it, and when the game turns nasty, he chooses Other Chloe to help him expose everything Chloe Donnelly has done. But neither realize just how much the truth could cost them in the end."

The blurb from the cover is a pretty accurate description of the book...the plot centers around this group of eight students playing multiple games of Gestapo, things progressively getting more tense until everything blows up, Chloe Donnelly ends up missing, and the other seven teens are implicated in her disappearance..dun dun dun! 

Obviously I did not enjoy this book, but good lord, where do I even begin? 

Main character Chloe is boring, sanctimonious, and incredibly judgmental. Even more irritatingly, most of her judgement is sandwiched in her self-pity over how everyone else is sooooo mean to her. Basically the entire book is her keeping up a running mental commentary of how useless and beneath her the people around her are, interspersed with self-satisfied reminders of how patient and tolerant she is. I don't understand if Desir wrote her as an unsympathetic character on purpose, but I couldn't stand her. Some particularly cringe examples of her awfulness:

"Eve smiled smugly as if she was the reason he'd agreed to play again, which I didn't believe for a second was the case. Chloe Donnelly must have talked him into it. Which meant she probably found out something about him. Or maybe they were hooking up on the sly, an she had him pussy-whipped or whatever that absolutely gross term was for when a guy did everything a girl said."

LMAO what?! Be a little more holier-than-thou in your feminism, right after throwing out the term "pussy-whipped" like you aren't sure you have it right.

"For a second I felt bad for him, for his small life filled with detention and post-lunch make-out sessions with his girlfriend. For his grudging promise to Holly of "no more girls" that made me wonder if he'd fooled around a lot and why. He was never going to leave Grinnell, no matter how often he took off in his car. High school was probably going to be the best time of his life. He'd be stuck in this town til he became like one of the old guys Pops hung out with at the farm store. Cam was nothing like his brother. All that wasted singing talent he'd never do anything with. Aiden would give up everything to get out of here, but not Cam. Too lazy or too defeated. It was sad, really. But before I could spend more time on the pity train, I shook myself and remembered how easily he dropped to his knees in front of Chloe Donnelly, and all my compassion stalled out."

Again, not sure if this is a deliberate choice on Desir's part or what, but holy shit, compassion? Is that compassion? Am I taking crazy pills? And finally...

"I sounded prudish and judgmental like the churchy girls who took "purity pictures" with their dads in this slightly gross way and then posted them online."

Providing the context for this was way too long a quote, but to set the scene, her friend reveals that she bought Ritalin from someone to help her focus on schoolwork after revealing what sounded to me to be some kind of learning disability, and Chloe tears her down and is horrible to her about it, then says this. This was far from the most sanctimonious bit of their conversation, but I had to go back and read it several times because.......what a weird comparison to make. Seriously, tell me. Am I supposed to like her?!

As if her preachy, hypocritical, self-satisfied judgement toward everyone else weren't enough, pretty early on in the book she stands there and watches her drunk supposed best friend get sexually assaulted and not only does she not say anything or try to help, she later (more than once!) throws the incident in her friend's face. Jesus H Christ, really? Are we supposed to like her?!

Moving past Chloe being the worst, this whole story was stuck in her head, and I feel like nothing got developed properly. It would be better, and maybe Chloe would even have seemed more likable, if more character and plot development had been described rather than narrated in Chloe's stream-of-consciousness litany of the faults of others and why nothing was her fault. I'm not averse to first person point of view, but this whole book was Chloe's self-narration, and not only did her mental voice get old fast, the limited description available meant that none of the other characters got any real development. Why should I care about Mateo when all I'm given about him is what benefits Chloe? What's the point of showing the soft side of douchebag Cam when it goes nowhere and leaves us picturing him as an irredeemable asshole? And finally, we spend the entire book on these games and trying to figure out what is going on with Chloe Donnelly, and then all that mystery is revealed in an epilogue? Really? There's not even any actual resolution, it's just "oh hey, you all got catfished by a 19-year-old computer genius with vague mental issues who catfished all of you for funsies, but there's nothing the police can do about it, sorry. The end." 

I read this book because the description and title were intriguing, but it was like reading the diary of a selfish, spoiled, overly-critical asshole, with absolutely no payoff at the end.

Honestly Ben - Bill Konigsberg

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

From the cover: "Ben Carver is back to normal. He’s getting all As in his classes at the Natick School. He was just elected captain of the baseball team. He’s even won a big scholarship for college, if he can keep up his grades. All that foolishness with Rafe Goldberg last semester is over now, and he just needs to be a Carver, work hard, and stay focused.

Except…There’s Hannah, a gorgeous girl who attracts him and distracts him. There’s his mother, whose quiet unhappiness he’s noticing for the first time. School is harder, the pressure higher, the scholarship almost slipping away. And there’s Rafe, funny, kind, dating someone else…and maybe the real normal that Ben needs."


I loved Openly Straight by Bill Konigsberg, so I was excited to finally have time to read the sequel, Honestly Ben. Ben is a man after my own heart, a pusher and an over-achiever for whom no accomplishment ever feels truly like it's enough, and for the most part I loved his story. It pulled at my heart strings reading about him struggling to decide how he felt, whether he was gay, bi, or...something else? And I empathized with him pushing back against people who tried to label him. Being able to put someone in a neat little labeled box may make it easier for you to feel like you understand them, but not all labels fit so neatly, and sometimes telling yourself you understand someone when you don't causes more harm than good. Kudos to Ben for resisting the labels people wanted to slap on him and being true to himself.

That being said, I did have issues with a couple of things in the book.

First, Hannah. Were we supposed to like her? It seemed like we were, but my god...I did not find her endearing. I particularly didn't love her reaction after the dance. I get the frustration, but dude. Romantic history aside, Rafe and Ben are best friends and Rafe just got dumped. Roles reversed, Hannah wouldn't have wanted to be there for her friend? Not only that, but if she wasn't cool with going home early, she should have said so. It seemed like Hannah was meant to be this evolved, high-thinking woman, but she came off as incredibly childish and obnoxious. No thanks.

Second, Ben's dad. Um...are we just not going to address how abusive his behavior is? I was really hoping for some ending closure where his mom separated from him and told him he needed to sort himself out if he wanted them to be a family. But no...instead we get a letter to him from Ben and...nothing. As someone who grew up with a similar father, it was difficult to read about all the crappy things his dad did/said and then not see any resolution. I know there were a lot of important issues already being addressed, so throwing one more into the mix is tough, but good god, of all the things to gloss over, an emotionally abusive, controlling father/husband is not it. Gah.

Anyway...those two characters aside, this book was great. I love Ben and his friends, and Konigsberg did an awesome job of balancing emotions. There were parts that tugged at my heart strings and made me tear up, and then there were sections where I was laughing out loud ("is my life force shit?" was a big one). Fantastic read.