The novel explores a toxic, inappropriate relationship between four teenagers an adult author they idolize. One of the teens defends her behavior and refuses to see she did anything wrong, while two of the others feel used, manipulated, and hurt. One of the character's parents specifically calls the relationship the author had with the teens, and the way the teens would spread her message to others, as being cultlike. The author's behavior is manipulative and has a lot in common with grooming, although nothing physical happens on-page. She is inappropriately familiar and emotionally close with the teens, including having them over to her house and giving one of them a key, and gets one of them to tell her details of her romantic and sexual relationship with one of the other teens. She encourages the teens to share intimate and personal details with her, with the intent of using it as fodder for her writing. It is deliberately murky whether she cared about the teens at all as people. One of the teens admits to having suspected the author was having a romantic or sexual relationship with one of them, but it's never entirely clear if she's right. A major event in the backstory is an instance of sexual assault and hazing that took place at a high school. For much of the novel, one of the characters is assumed to have been the victim of the hazing; however, it is eventually discovered that he was actually a perpetrator. The book-within-a-book that dramatizes the in-universe events (written by the author who has been basing her work off the teenagers she's cultivated a relationship with) portrays the perpetrator as remorseful of his actions and being a good person who did something terrible. The characters all have different opinions on this, and we never see the perpetrator's actual thoughts, or hear from him directly, only seeing him through other's eyes. The victim similarly never makes an appearance.