uNTIL FRIDAY NIGHT

I hesitated to even write this review, lest you think I in any way endorse this book. I don't. I realized, however, that by not publishing this review I was staying silent on a very real and very pervasive problem. I hope that you read the review, and others, and draw your own conclusions (and then I hope you never, ever buy books like this or recommend them to others, especially teens, but that's just me).

I am not a book abandoner; I usually hope until the bitter end that something about the book will be redeeming, that there will be some twist or turn that will have me going, "Yes! So glad I kept reading." This was not that book. This was the book that had me wondering why I wasted all that time on such misogynistic, women-as-accessories b.s. Oh, I can absolutely see how this 50 Shades of Grey for teens is a hit - steamy sex scenes, football players, cheerleaders, small town Friday nights - it checks all the boxes. I could not, however, get past the uncomfortable feeling that it left in the pit of my stomach every time I picked it up (or turned it on, really. I listened to the audiobook, which definitely didn't help. Read on.) The book takes place in small town southern USA, where football players are king and cheerleaders their arm candy. Where mamas stay home and cook grits and collard greens for their "men" and kids have field parties just outside the town lines so the cops don't bust them. And, really, if that had been the foundation for a great story with great characters this would be a very different review. It isn't though, and so we're left with this patriarchal world where the women serve the men and nothing more. Unfortunately, this book doesn't stop there. It works harder and harder to paint a picture of a small-town America where women are little more than accessories for the men, where they are regularly referred to as either "babe" or "bitch" and where, quite literally, their voices are silenced over and over again. The main character chooses not to speak for half of the book; by making her choose not to speak, Glines provides ample opportunity for the male characters to speak for her or about her, as if she were their property ("She's off-limits" declares her cousin on the very first day), and giving her no recourse to answer, except in her own head (where she should be swearing a blue streak at them. But she isn't, because swearing isn't lady-like). Of course, when she does decide to speak it isn't because she has worked through her demons and come out stronger; no, it's because the male main character needs her to soothe his pain. And then he takes and takes and takes until finally she calls it off (yes! She's finally standing up for herself. Oh, no, wait for it...) only to go running back the next day because he says he loves her (and now is apparently going to swear off blow jobs in the bathroom as the other way to soothe his pain. Seriously.). The toxic masculinity masquerading as chivalry in this book is appalling and never ends. The idea that a woman's worth is measured only by who she is in relation to men is pervasive - from the possessive, if-only-he-loved-me relationship of the two main characters, to the mom who doesn't know who she is after the dad dies, to the cheerleaders who live only to be the next piece of football player arm candy, there is not a single female in this book that I would hold up as a role model for my two daughters, that I would tell them "that girl, be strong and smart and kind like that girl". Unfortunately, the audiobook only makes this worse, as the female characters all have a breathless, high-pitched southern drawl that makes them sound a bit vapid, while the men vacillate between sounding angry and clueless. Added to all of this is a slut-shaming narrative, where the cheerleaders with the laquered nails give blow jobs in the bathroom and the new girl in town is so virginally beautiful she doesn't need makeup to have "perfectly pink lips". Where women only tear each other down, while the bros stick together and, oh yes, tear the women down.

It disturbs me deeply that young women and men are learning about their place in the world and how to interact with one another by reading books such as these. It bothers me that these would become New York Times bestsellers. Words cannot express how horrified I am that a woman is authoring these books and contributing to a culture where women are worth little more than the men they marry. Please, Abbi, although I highly doubt you'll ever read this, stop writing this garbage and put your pen to the job of building women up to be the strong, ass-kicking, independent characters they should be. Everyone else, don't waste your money on this one.