what readers are saying

I CAN BE YOUR FRIEND

 

First of all—thank you for this ARC and for casually tossing my sanity into a blender. I didn’t need stability anyway.

Let’s just get this out of the way: if death, revenge, mental illness, and bullying are things you’d rather not sit next to at dinner, maybe don’t RSVP to this one. This book doesn’t gently explore dark themes. It drags you down the hallway by your wrist and makes you look at them.

I was hooked from page one. I thought I knew where it was going. I really did. I had my little theories, my confident nods, my “ah yes, I see what you’re doing here.”
Jessica Blade saw that confidence and laughed.

The desperation in this story? It’s suffocating. That raw, aching need to belong to someone. To be chosen. To be seen. To be the one person someone can’t live without. And the terrifying part? How easy it is to understand that feeling. How thin the line is between longing and obsession. Between love and control.

There’s something deeply unsettling about watching someone convince themselves they’re doing the right thing. That they’re protecting. Helping. Saving. When in reality they’re unraveling. And while reading, I kept questioning everything. The characters. The motives. My own judgment. At some point I genuinely wondered if I was the unstable one.

The fear, the frustration, the confusion—it seeps into you. I felt for all of them, even when I didn’t want to. Especially when I didn’t want to.

And the ending? I won’t spoil it. I never do. But let’s just say there’s a moment. A big one. The kind that makes you stare at the wall after you close the book and whisper, “Oh.”
Did I see it coming? No. Or maybe I refused to see it because the truth isn’t comforting. It doesn’t tuck you in at night. It just sits there and dares you to deal with it.

Five heartbreaking, sanity-questioning stars. Because when a book lingers in your head long after you’ve finished it—when it makes you uncomfortable in the best, most haunting way—it deserves every single one.

If you’ve ever wanted to belong so badly it hurt… this one will hit. Hard.