Normally like de la Cruz's novels but this one tackled much more hard-hitting topics than normal for her, not written badly in the slightest but I just got quite sensitive and it did affect my enjoyability of it.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to read and review this book.

After losing and replacing my broken Kindle and getting a new phone I was unable to download the title again for review as it was no longer available on Netgalley.

I’m really sorry about this and hope that it won’t affect you allowing me to read and review your titles in the future.

Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity.
Natalie.

This book digs deep into the issues of eating disorders. Olivia suffers under the pressure from her family to be perfect and I think most of us can relate to feeling under pressure of some sort.

DNF at 14%. I don't like any of the characters so far and feel like the plot will be predictable.

Stuck with binge purge tendencies, we meet Olivia, struggling with her weight and self acceptance after Ollie dumps her, as he was a popular guy in school. Her best friend Sam is there for her still by her side and she grows close to Zac whilst helping her friend Antonia and distracting her parents from her eating disorder, her father decides to run for Governor and thus the press picks up on Olivia and starts to pick through her life just as her bulimia takes another turn into self harm.



Olivia is a character over whelmed with everything she faces but most importantly is that she never puts herself first and instead pressures herself to be good enough and struggling with not feeling that way. When she seeks help, Dr. Larson is a calming and refreshing view in on her life which helps her to come to terms with the fact that she needs to take care of herself to develop a healthier relationship towards herself and stopping the cycle of hate she has fallen into.



This book was a great read to raise awareness of how we all need to step back from what we need to do and make sure we always do something we want to do out of joy for ourselves and that prioritizing caring for ourselves is not selfish but necessary to love ourselves and each other which is key to being happier and healthier.



Many thanks to the publishers for allowing me to review this book for them!

This book has the potential to be incredibly triggering to those that have suffered or are suffering with either an eating disorder or self-harm - please read it knowing your own limits. I myself have been in recovery for just over five years now and I found some parts left me drawing my breath, and needing to just walk away from it.

Going solely on Someone to Love, as my first book by Melissa de la Cruz, I can honestly say that I don’t plan on reading any of her other books anytime soon. I hear so many people rave about her but this book, aside from the harrowing subject matter which isn’t addressed nearly enough in YA novels, was just okay... at a push.

I don’t want to talk about the triggering aspects too much but I did find myself feeling extremely sympathetic to Liv, even if her character irritated me to no end. The fact that people, including her parents, knew about her eating disorder and just brushed it off as a teenage girl phase, pretty much, made me want to reach into the book and smack them. You just don’t do that to your child. And don’t even get me started about the comment made by the psychiatrist at the end - “I was a more violent cutter” - just no. I’m so annoyed and upset that Melissa de la Cruz and her team thought this was a good thing to put in a book, if I’m being perfectly honest. Self harm, or any health issue (be it psychological or physical), is not a competition and this remark, to me, is just dangerous. Sure, Dr Eleanor is attempting to connect with her patient but any doctor wouldn’t risk being sued for malpractice just to create a rapport.

Even as a survivor of the issues plaguing Liv in this book, I couldn’t help but feel it was wholly unrealistic at the end. Yes, you can accept treatment and acknowledge you have a problem but things don’t get better at the click of your fingers.

In short, everybody in this book angered me at one point or another, and I’m not sure that I would be chomping at the bit to recommend it to others when they request books about this sort of subject matter in the future.

This book faces such difficult issues. Olivia’s struggle with bulimia was so emotional. The whole story was emotional and realistic. It was such a unique book, I haven’t read a book before that deals with these issues.

DNF @ 20%

I'm not really feeling this one at the moment. I'm in a bit of a slump recently, especially when it comes to contemporary. I may or may not go back to it later.

I Stopped reading this book about half way through it and i don't want to be super negative about it at all but all i'm going to say is if you are triggered at all by eating disorders, DO NOT read this book because it features extremely heavily within it.

I'm 50/50 with this.
I did enjoy it and it was quick for me to read. But majority of the characters annoyed me with How they treated Liv.
I would like to see where Liv life goes a few years later.

This was an okay book about a girl with bulimia who finds herself in the public spotlight when her dad decides to run for governor.

The story was paced a little slowly but it rattled along okay and I guess it shed some light on topics that are relevant, like constantly feeling compared to other girls, self-harm, parental pressure and eating disorders. There were some aspects of the book that didn't feel so relevant, though. Like the problems Olivia has with being in the public spotlight (can't see that being a major issue for 99.9%of the population) or being super-rich (yeah .....) or having a famous boyfriend.

Just as a bit of background, I've never had an eating disorder so I can't speak from first-hand experience, but something about this story felt a bit off, like it didn't quite ring true. I think it was the way she seemed to recover from her bulimia so quickly at the end. I may not know much about eating disorders, but I do know it's not like tonsillitis. You can't just take a pill and get better. It takes months and years of therapy and support. I think the author was trying to do a really brave and worthy thing in writing about this, and I'm not saying that every story has to be like an own-voices thing, but it still has to have authenticity and some of the description of Olivia's bulimia just felt a bit ... functional.

I really liked Sam in this story, but Olivia was a bit bland and naive. Zack was utterly charmless and I was zero-surprised when he turned out to be an arsehole. I wasn't a massive fan of Antonia either - she really pressured Olivia.

The writing felt a bit tell-don't-show. Like this paragraph here:

<b>I love being around Antonia. She makes me feel so alive.</b>

Don't tell me these things - show me.

There were two characters from one of the author's previous books included in this story. They weren't integral to the plot of this book and they didn't really have a proper story arc of their own, so it felt like they were just shoehorned in because the author wanted to catch up with them again.

All in all, not a winner for me.

So, the cover and the blurb of this book really drew me in, even though I was unsure if I would like it or not because this one was a little different to what I would usually enjoy. I can safely say that I was pleasantly surprised because this book was brilliant. It was so powerful, and it's one of those books that everyone can learn something from. Without giving too much away, I'll say that the representation of eating disorders in this book is definitely authentic and realistic and I felt like the book had a really important message to it after you finished instead of just being a light teen romance novel.
When I started the book, I did think that it was going to turn into something else because of how quickly we jumped into the plot, and how the 'perfect' boy was introduced pretty much straight away. However, once I really started reading it, the story really came together and it still felt real even though the characters were all these very high profile people.
Another thing that I really enjoyed was the theme of art that was carried through the book, from little bits of information about Frida Kahlo to the fictional LeFeber who actually provides some sound advice. I think that all of the art talk also really acts as an outlet so that we have this almost separate little story-line that helps to not make the book too heavy.
There is a lot of description of eating disorders and this could be triggering so please read with caution. If you do read it though, I think that it is hard hitting and again, it's definitely worth the read. I liked almost all of the characters (with the exception of a few who weren't very nice!) and there were really great friendships and family relationships and it was nice to see those in a lot of depth.
Without giving away the ending, I just want to finish by saying that the ending of the book was brilliant and I'm glad that it ended the way that it did.

Thank you Netgalley for the arc in exchange for an honest and fair review.

Warning Spoilers.

I have been a fan of Melissa de la Cruz for a while so I was incredibly happy when I managed to get this ARC.
I went into the novel without much previous knowledge other than it was on a serious subject matter and I am so glad that I went into it blind, otherwise I probably would have avoided it.

As a person who has previously went through depression I tend to avoid books based on the subject matter but I am honestly so glad I read this one.
The subject matter was so good, and I felt that it was portrayed really well I felt myself getting pulled into the story as I made my way through the novel.

he writing was so beautiful that it had me getting immersed in the expensive and highly political world Melissa created.

I loved the love that was shared between the family and I found I was able to connect with Liv on a level, though I have never had Bulimia. And honestly I wanted to see her punch Jackson and Zach towards the end.

I found it hard however as it tended, towards the end, to move very quickly and I wasn't quite sure of dates and times at particular points this caused it to drop in the ratings for me.

I would recommend this book to people who haven't been through any of the experiences to help them gain a perspective of what those who suffer go through.

A moving but timely novel about a subject unfortunately very close to a lot of young women's hearts, eating disorders.

Olivia is the daughter of a politician and suffers from pressure from all sides - family, friends, school, relationships. Although her life is a little more glamorous than most of the readers will be, the struggles she deals with are ones which are almost universal to teenagers these days. I loved her friendships, especially with Antonia, and think this book will be very relatable for a lot of young people.

Although this book focuses on a character who would seem to be very fortunate (rich parents, living in LA and dating an actor) it takes the setting in the opposite direction. Liv is an aspiring artist and also aspires to be perfect, weighing 100 pounds. As she struggles with her father's political career putting her in the spotlight things become darker and darker for her as she gets thinner and thinner and self harms. The novel was well written but a little long and there was a lot of flowery writing around the theme of art and how meaningful it is, through Liv's artist heroes Frida Kahlo (yay!) and the fictional LeFeber (I found it a bit off that she needs to be anointed as special by a white middle aged artist to believe in her art?) Nevertheless the novel does a good job of covering dark subject matter while not being too hard to read.