Books like Rich Girl, Poor Girl

Yeah.. no. I started out enjoying this novel. It sort of reminded me of a Jaclyn or Liane Moriarty novel (I have enjoyed many books by both women), but it just went downhill from there. This book doesn't seem to know what it is. Is it a mystery? Crime? Romance? Chick-lit? Sometimes scope-creep works well across genres, particularly if it's done intentionally and with a deft hand. More often than not, it comes across as confused and irritating, like the author wanted the book to be too many things and it was therefore none of them. Seemingly important plot points are glossed over or covered in a page or so, but the long descriptions of sex often take more space, are painful to read, and are often unnecessary. Is there anything more cringey than gratuitous, poorly-written sex scenes? (Don't answer that.) The changing POV works to begin with but quickly becomes irritating. It's a tough thing to pull off, particularly for an inexperienced author, and Lokko definitely does not do it well. Some of the characters are better-drawn than others, but they're all not much more than cardboard cutouts, and unsympathetic ones at that. In the latter half of the book I wanted to shake just about every character. Tory's decisions don't make sense because we haven't been convinced to emotionally invest in her, we've just been TOLD things. Caryn is supposed to be an incredibly intelligent girl but I see literally no evidence of this, which makes her painful to read. I found myself asking if this is the author's idea of what an intelligent woman looks like... Nic is just... naive and stupid. I understood in theory why she was the way she was, but I still didn't feel sympathy for her. None of the characters actually get a satisfying resolution, making the amount of time I wasted on this book even more annoying.The ending feels forced and rushed.Estelle's motivation feels both stupid and forced - she feels retrofitted in. She would have been more interesting as a calculated but intelligent woman driven by revenge, but she was instead just... angry. And stupid. And that's not even getting into some of the problematic messaging. Basically, everyone was stupid, one-dimensional, unsympathetic and irritating. The plot was confused (but simplistic). I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, and the only reason I didn't give it one star is because I save that for books that are even worse than this one. (Ie. Twilight).