What an original and enjoyable book, I wasn’t sure what to expect but this surprised me.
Such a strange mixture of light and heavy, with moments of feeling very YA/teen and funny then the next moment flipping to serious and heartbreaking. A lot of focus on different issues, sexual assault, mental health, ptsd, panic attacks, abuse and violence.

I can relate to every insecurity, worry and problem she has, with absent/abusive parents, no support system, finding her own family and just all of it.
Of struggling to be able to afford things and being embarrassed for your classmates/friends to find out about what your problems and home life are like.
It fills my heart so much Harleens reaction to having supportive and loving friends for the first time in her life, being able to look for people in a crowd and actually having someone being there in your corner.

The forboding and tension in the present tense chapters made me need to keep reading so fast to get to the end and find out what happened.

At times this was a little simplistic with consistent quirky, somewhat hyper narrative, which did a good job capturing the personality we know and love as Harley. An interesting modern twist on a well known character, fun to figure out the similarities and twists.

Very feminist and inclusive with lots of LGBTQ characters, sapphic relationships, ADHD, different classes, black and Latina characters.

Lots of modern slang which does irritate me personally.
I would have loved this even more as a teen, but it was still great, I can’t wait for the sequel!

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‘I am so sick of it. All of it. I'm sick of my dad and his it's-
your-fault-for-wearing-a-skirt-that's-too-shortBS. I'm sick
of people acting like I'm crazy. Anytime a woman gets mad
or sad or emotional, boom, let's put a big stamp on that feeling that says it isn't valid. That it's maybe even pathological.
You know as many as 70 percent of women got diagnosed
as hysterical by certain doctors back in the day? But what
if none of them were Crazy Bitches? What if they were
just tired? Tired of pretending everything was okay when it
wasn't, and living in a world that was designed to be against them, and being told to smile through the knife wounds.
Maybe pretending to be okay in the middle of a tornado is
the truly crazy thing.’

‘They're terrified. No one messes with him. No one says anything to him. No one approaches.
And I think, There is power in becoming a persona.
And I think, There is power in laughter.
And I think, There's something darkly gorgeous about him.’ ( )

Set in the DC Heroes universe, this is a blend of romance, mystery, and strong girls fighting academic misogyny. Harley lives with her abusive alcoholic father. Her dream is to get accepted at Gotham U. She's an intern in the labs there, intent upon proving her worth by a series of experiments on what she believes is DNA that will prove that a certain substance level, when combined with early trauma, will show a high correlation with criminal behavior.
When she finds her co-intern, who she has strong feelings for comatose in the lab, that coupled with a mysterious number of prior interns who quit the program and become hysterical whenever they are questioned about it, is the start to a series of events that are both intriguing and scary for both girls. I'm already psyched about the sequel which comes out in early 2023. ( )