Hack by Deana Birch

The Quick Cut: A girl looking to escape her very isolated life get involved with a gang using her hacking skills. Her intentions go south the more she gets involved with one of the members. A Real Review: Thank you to the author for providing the ARC for an honest review.

No one likes feeling caged in, but when your parents are the ones doing it there's something extra difficult about it. How do you cope once you find yourself in reality. This is the case for Marigold.

Marigold has felt trapped by her parents her entire life. Their rigid lifestyle makes her feel like she can't be who she truly is. What she does do is hacking, along with sharing her methods. So when a guy named Rafael reaches out, she uses it as an opportunity to find a life outside her parents isolated ways. Except Rafael is a member of a gang and now she's way in over her head. Was this a mistake or a step towards her true path?

This is a cute story, but I found myself unimpressed by the romance angle. They do the whole enemies to lovers thing, but the switch in feelings happens so suddenly it feels disingenuous. For me, it ruined the story for me.

At it's core, the book is about Marigold and her journey to being herself. Seeing her start out as shy in the world and bold on the internet to bold all the way around is an enjoyable one. I wish the focus was more on that aspect.

I get what the author was trying to do with Rafael, but he ended up coming off creepy with how he acted and thought about Marigold.

A love story that would be better without the love.

My rating: 3 out of 5