So... the beginning of this book should mention that it is the third one in the series. I did not know this until I finished it. That being said I will probably not go back to read the others- perhaps I'll read the summaries.
This book had way to many characters and relationships to follow. I'm amazed that this book isn't the 5th of 6th one considering the amount of relationships occurred in a short amount of time. I'm also curious how it is not the first. The book made it seem that once Mallory was kidnapped everyone else met and not before. So are the 1st and 2nd books set during the same time? I was so confused.
It did not help that they were constantly changing how they referred to people and their names are all weird, so they are very hard to keep track of.
That was not the only issue I had with this book. There were so many editing errors. I don't know if that was because I had an outdated version, but there were page breaks that cut into sentences and a severe lack of necessary commas, as well as so many sentences that lacked in clarity and I had to rewrite the sentence in my head.
There were also times in which questions were asked and then ignored. Not to mention that at one point Mal finds out her sister is pregnant and she's shocked, but then when people come into the room she is like "my sister is pregnant and blah blah blah" and they make no suggestion they heard the first part. What's worse is that Mal is also now chill about it and does not bring it up again.
I will say something nice because it had a good general story and world. I liked that it didn't go into instalove and it took a while for Mal to accept what happened and the situation she is now in (I think that's why the rest of the girls in the book having instalove is so weird and off putting).
In summary, this book could have had a higher rating if it was edited properly, situations were reworked to flow better, and I was made aware that it was a third book in a series and it would be beneficial to read the others first.