If you asked seventeen-year-old Cass Williams to describe herself, she’d happily tell you she’s fat, queer, and obsessed with the Tide Wars books. What she won’t tell you—or anyone in her life—is that she’s part of an online Tide Wars roleplay community. Sure, it’s nerdy as hell, but when she’s behind the screen writing scenes as Captain Aresha, she doesn’t have to think about her mother who walked out or how unexpectedly stressful it is dating resident cool girl Taylor Cooper.
But secretly retreating to her online life is starting to catch up with Cass. For one, no one in her real life knows her secret roleplay addiction is the reason her grades have taken a big hit. Also? Cass has started catching feelings for Rowan Davies, her internet bestie…and Taylor might be catching on.
As Cass’s lies continue to build, so does her anxiety. Roleplaying used to be the one place she could escape to, but this double life and offline-online love triangle have only made things worse. Cass must decide what to do—be honest and risk losing her safe space or keep it a secret and put everything else on the line.
This book really spoke to me as a sorta-retired online roleplayer through high school/college/and beyond. So, thank you NetGalley for the ARC. I felt like the online friendship part really rang true because those people do become your found family and it’s a special kind of relationship. I think Cassidy has a lot to go through in this book and I think she does it quite well. She is definitely more in touch with her feelings than I was as a teenager. I will say I didn’t enjoy the second hand cringe I experienced as her lies piled up around her, but she did eventually break through on that.
I really loved her other friends as well – Tate was amazing and I loved Rowan/Holly/Autumn. I think Taylor was well written even though a little manic pixie girl for my tastes, but it definitely felt like a high school relationship when you don’t know what you’re doing but the other person might know more than you. I was glad that Cassidy knows that she has an addiction problem and has to figure out how to juggle that with school and didn’t just look for some magical fix-all and actually put in the hard work for it. Some of the high school experiences did seem a little too perfect though, especially getting away with drinking at multiple parties. I feel like my parents would have killed me, haha.
Her relationship with her parents was also really interesting and I think that Jenna did a great job exploring how it would feel for your mother to just drop everything and leave your life. Her dad is seriously the best Cool Dad out there. I think it was handled really well and you really got a good mix of parental involvement in this book, which is a change where a lot of YAs pretend parents don’t really exist.
This book was a 5/5 for me and it got me completely in my feels. The roleplay scenes were a hoot and I think it’d be great to have a Tide Wars book now (you listening, HaperCollins??). It just made me remember how much I loved meeting people online, bonding, and having those intense friendships that kept you up until 2am writing together. It’s a special thing and it’s so cool to see someone put it in book form so more people understand what it is. Also, that final act – AMAZING.
Definitely pick up this book on Feb 7th!