The Quick Cut: Three teen girls find themselves at the center of the drama after rumors at their private school cause chaos. A Real Review: Thank you to Hyperion for providing the ARC for an honest review. Anyone who has gone to high school can tell you how synonymous rumors are with the experience. Whether the truth is a secret or someone made something up, it's almost a guarantee that at some point, rumors will circulate about a topic that everyone is interested in. Most times the damage they create is minor but what happens if they get out of control? This is the case at Foxham Prep. Foxham Prep is a very fancy and expensive school for the elite in the Washington DC area. However, the price tag doesn't eliminate the timeless school tradition of rumors and they are running rampant right now. The senior class president Bryn went off the rails over the summer and intentionally got in an accident with other students, including her now ex-boyfriend. Now everyone wants her to resign as class president and the only friend she has is Georgie, a classmate who lost a lot of weight overnight. Bryn just wants the rumors to end and to get her best friend Cora back. What happens when the rumors are about you? Can you turn it around after it's taken everything from you? This book is well over 400 pages, which would usually make me uninterested in reading it. I'm not a big fan of long books. However, this is the exception to the rule with this story about the toxicity of rumors and bullying. It may take it's time to build up the plot and get to the punchline, but it is well worth the wait. The authors do such a phenomenal job writing a story that doesn't pull it's punches and feels quite true to life. It is both heartbreaking and exciting at the same time. Important trigger alert: this story can get dark and discusses bullying, sexual assault, drinking, and drugs. The story is told from the perspective of three girls: Bryn, Georgie, and Cora. In the beginning, Bryn and Georgie are friends with Cora being the popular girl with all the power. As the plot changes, their relationship to one another shifts with one another and the entire school population. It's interesting to see how their reputations change too as the rumor mill changes it's top story. My feelings on each character changed so much from the start to the end. Once I got to the end, it left me wondering if the impressions of people in my own life are based on fact or fiction. Bryn is painted as the girl spurned. Her boyfriend cheated on her and by the end, she's painted as the bad guy who loses it all. She's going through her own issues behind closed doors with her parents too at the same time. It is a portrayal that points out eloquently how you never know quite what anyone is going through behind closed doors. Sometimes a moment of what appears to be insanity can be in actuality the culmination of a lot of problems coming together. Georgie is the newly skinnier girl at school who suddenly gains attention. She's always been a smart, quiet girl who quickly becomes a part of the social scene she didn't know about before. Seeing her try to change her image and lose control of it is an emotional rollercoaster. Her life spins put of control and it's so hard as a reader to watch it unfold. I related to her so much in the beginning that I did get caught up in her story. Finally, there is Cora. She used to be Bryn's best friend and is the cheer captain. She's popular and has everything that Bryn wants back. I was never popular in high school, but with this story you get a glimpse of what it is like to be socially gifted and try to hold onto that. Even as a popular girl, she struggles with stories running rampant about her life and trying not to let it mess with her head. I used to think the popular kids didn't have anything to worry about. This story shows just how wrong that assumption can be. A powerful portrayal of how toxic rumors are and how they can ruin lives. My rating: 5 out of 5