Just finished reading "I Am Princess X"

I actually started reading it a couple months ago at this point lol. It's not that long, I just kept procrastinating about continuing it and just did other things.

I decided to read it because I found it while looking for something else, and remembered how I got it at the school scholastic book fair when I was in 7th grade, but never finished reading it. Basically, I have a really bad phobia of needles, and one of the characters is sort of named "Needle Man", so I got too scared to keep reading it, because I thought he was going to be some sort of needle-themed horror villain lol. As you might be able to tell, I had zero idea of what the book was about before I bought it – barely even read the back of the book. I literally only picked it up because the cover caught my eye, since it had a lot of pink and purple on it, and the title had the word "princess". What can I say? I was really into Ever After High around that time.

So in short, the book is basically about a girl named May who has a best friend named Libby. They were super close, until Libby died when her mom drove off of a bridge. Supposedly. Three years later, the character May and Libby created together as kids, Princess X, sort of resurfaces online as this new, edgier webcomic, and it's a mystery who's behind writing it. Knowing that nobody else would know the character details of Princess X besides her and Libby, May decides to follow hidden clues left in the comic to find out what really happened and where Libby really is.

The book is definitely more grounded in reality than 12-year-old me would have expected it to be. Knowing how I was at that age, I think that would have turned me away from it anyway lol. It was pretty good though. Keep in mind that I did not read this all as quickly as I should have and I did take weeklong breaks in between chapters lol (I'm also just dumb), but it kinda lost me in the middle a little bit. I didn't really get why Trick was hiding his online presence from May, it (thankfully) didn't result in any "liar revealed" scene or third act breakup. The book obviously picked up towards the end and I enjoyed reading that the most. I think what made it a little hard to get through the previous chapters sometimes was that we weren't really given much of May and Libby's interactions, idk. I'm not a very good writer myself, but maybe the occasional flashback wouldn't have hurt. Anyway, the ending was really cute and very hopeful. Almost made me want to see what happened to the characters afterwards, but I know that wouldn't be necessary. I was also pleasantly surprised by the lack of a romantic subplot. I know it was sold in middle school book fairs, but still, I feel like it's kind of typical to have one.

To be honest, it's not really the type of book I would normally read, I guess (as if I read books often lol)? So, maybe I'm just a little outside of the book's appeal, it's not really related to my interests. I did enjoy it though.

In finishing this book, I have checked off another resolution I had this year, which was to finish a novel! Yaaaaay. Yeah, I didn't finish any other books yet... shut up...