Till There Was You by Lindsay Hameroff review

Culinary student Lexi Berman, 24, has one goal: to make her late mother proud by becoming an executive chef in a Michelin-star restaurant. And she isn’t going to let anything–or anyone–get in the way. But when she meets Jake Taylor, a dive bar musician who charms her with show tunes, she makes a rare exception to her no-dating rule. After a steamy weekend together, Jake leaves for L.A. to record his demo, and Lexi never expects to see him again. And she definitely doesn’t expect him to become an overnight celebrity, with a breakout single that’s almost certainly about her famous blueberry pancake recipe.

As Jake’s star rises and the world speculates about the subject of his song, Lexi keeps the affair to herself. After all, she’s finally found her footing at her new restaurant job, and even has a prospective romance with her coworker. But when a distraught Jake turns up on her doorstep late one night, her carefully-laid plans are thrown for a loop. Though she and Jake try to be friends, things between them soon reheat faster than a bowl of Lexi’s matzah ball soup. But a relationship with Jake means risking her face in tabloids, withstanding cruel internet comments, and worst of all, jeopardizing her career. As Jake’s upcoming tour approaches, and rumors swirl about him and another pop star, Lexi has to decide if holding onto her meticulously-planned future is worth walking away from what could be the perfect recipe for love.

⭐⭐

Rating: 2 out of 5.

Honestly? These two just gave off red flags for the entirety of this book.

Till There Was You opens with our two main characters, Lexi and Jake, meeting at a bar. While the two instantly find a connection and are immediately obsessed with the other, I found it off-putting that Jake invites himself to stay at Lexi’s apartment for a few days after the two had a one night stand.

This isn’t the last time our male main character pushes his own ideas on our female main character. Throughout the book, as Jake’s music career begins to take off and he becomes a celebrity, there are multiple moments where he tells Lexi what to think about their relationship. When she begins doubting staying with him amidst the paparazzi and the hit her own career is taking, he tells her that being with a celebrity is difficult, but they need to stick with it because she makes him feel “normal”.

By the time I was 100 pages of the way through this story, I already felt like it should have began to wrap up the plot, only for there to be another 200 pages left! Till There Was You is a story that drags on, to the point where I needed to take a three week long reading break before I could finish this story!

Ultimately, I finished it, but I definitely wasn’t enjoying myself as I read Lexi begin to act irrational and second guess every aspect of her life because of this relationship. This book felt more like Jake was taking advantage of Lexi than it did a romance, though I never got the urge to DNF and fully give up on this book.

Some Girls Do by Jennifer Dugan review

Morgan, an elite track athlete, is forced to transfer high schools late in her senior year after it turns out being queer is against her private Catholic school’s code of conduct. There, she meets Ruby, who has two hobbies: tinkering with her baby blue 1970 Ford Torino and competing in local beauty pageants, the latter to live out the dreams of her overbearing mother. The two are drawn to each other and can’t deny their growing feelings. But while Morgan—out and proud, and determined to have a fresh start—doesn’t want to have to keep their budding relationship a secret, Ruby isn’t ready to come out yet. With each girl on a different path toward living her truth, can they go the distance together?

⭐⭐

Rating: 2 out of 5.

Sometimes, books just aren’t for me. Unfortunately, sometimes that fact also coincides with the book being a pick for my book club, and I’m forced to read the book anyway.

And since I’ve finished the book, I might as well share my thoughts on it, right?

The biggest problem I had with this book was Ruby’s relationship with her mom. Being the daughter of a former beauty pageant competitor who got pregnant at 16 and was forced to drop out of competing, Ruby feels forced to compete and live out the dreams her mom has set for her, even if she would rather work on old cars instead of worrying about her nails.

Ruby’s mom isn’t the easiest character to care even a smidgen for. She’s constantly using the small amount money they have to sign up for more competitions (even if it means getting their power shut off), and even goes as far as hitting Ruby later on in the story.

But Ruby still loves her mom. Still chooses her mom’s side over everything else. And that was frustrating to read.

Ultimately, I understand the sort of story this book is telling. How Ruby sticks with her mom because it’s all she’s ever known. How she feels like she has to “make up” for the fact that she was even born.

And I appreciate how the relationship between Ruby and Morgan shows that each girl is at a different point in their queer journey. How they take the time to try and compromise what each of them wants in order to keep the relationship.

But Some Girls Do is a frustrating book, and if I had the choice, I wouldn’t have finished reading it.

This One Was… Off | Barbarian’s Redemption (Ice Planet Barbarians #12) by Ruby Dixon

For seasons, I have waited for her – my perfect mate.

In a tribe full of happy couples, I am alone. But I am not content to remain this way. There are no eligible unmated females left, so I will do whatever it takes to bring females back to our tribe…even if it means doing something wrong. Even if it means I must purchase my mate on the intergalactic black market. I will do anything to possess her, to claim her as my own.

But will my ruthless move turn my female against me before we ever meet? Can she ever forgive a male that bought her freedom?

⭐⭐

Rating: 2 out of 5.

The idea of a Bek-focused story has intrigued me. To have a character so disliked within the books get a redemption arc? I was very interested in seeing the way this book would go.

However, this book… was questionable at best.

At the end of the previous book, Barbarian’s Choice, we learn Bek is planning on obtaining five more human girls for the tribe. He pays a few of the side characters from the last book to do this and eagerly awaits their return. Originally, I assumed this was showing off how ruthless Bek could be.

This is Bek. He’s not a good person. He bought slaves.

But then the girls come, and Bek… shows absolutely no hints that he understands what he’s done. To him, he’s brought more people to the planet and should be awarded for this effort. Despite the fact that he knows Georgie and the other human girls, knows their story and how they are trapped on this planet, and knows that the girls are upset that they are here but are living every day to the best of their ability because they have no other option.

Bek cannot possibly be this stupid.

Not to mention the way Bek “learns” that what he did was wrong? His mate in this book is Elly, one of the new girls who was a slave for ten years before the events of this story. Because Bek just isn’t comprehending the magnitude of what he has done, the two end up performing this weird roleplay (slaveplay??) of what it was like for Elly for all those years.

I do not know how to properly format my frustrated screaming in a semi-formal book review.

This whole book just felt forced, like Ruby Dixon had this idea but didn’t want to fully think it through. She just splattered some words down on the page and went “there you go! A new book!” and we all have to live with it.

What frustrates me the most with this book, however, was that there were some good moments. I enjoyed the relationship between Elly and Bek because of how well Bek (eventually) understood the things she needed. Here we have a character who feels like she can’t eat, even when she is starving and wants to eat, because she’s afraid of the food being poisoned. Even if the food comes from a trustworthy source, she’s terrified of what may happen if she eats it. And Bek, without being asked, takes a bite of every piece of food to show her that it’s okay! Every single time! He doesn’t think it’s silly or ask why he needs to do it, he just does it because he knows she needs it!

He could have been a good man! This could have been a wholesome book! But the plot of him not understanding what he did wrong was unnecessary!

That Damn Red Scarf… | Our Cursed Love by Julie Abe

Six days to remember.
Love or lose him forever.

Remy Kobata has always wished she was destined to be with her best friend, Cam Yasuda. All the way from being neighbors from birth to mixing up magical prank potions together to their “just friends” homecoming date during their senior year in high school, nothing’s a secret between Remy and Cam—except for how much she is in love with him.

Remy is trying to work up the courage to confess her feelings during their winter break trip to Japan, when she gets selected for a mystical tea leaves reading and it reveals that they’re not meant to be together. After they stumble upon a secret magical apothecary in the back alleys of Tokyo, Remy and Cam are offered an ancient soulmate elixir, created before all love potions were banned by the magical government. They each have their reasons for wanting to take it, but what could go wrong with finding your soulmate a little earlier?

Except, after they drink up, their senior year trip flips into the worst vacation Cam has forgotten who Remy is. If she can’t help Cam remember her by midnight New Year’s Eve, they’ll both be cursed to forget each other. To unravel their past and rewrite the future, Remy and Cam must travel through Tokyo to rediscover Cam’s memories and make new ones—and maybe even fall in love all over again.

Our Cursed Love by Julie Abe gets published December 12, 2023!

⭐⭐

Rating: 2 out of 5.

To be completely honest, I don’t think a lot of readers are going to enjoy this book.

Our Cursed Love starts with Remy, our female main character, telling herself that this is the week she will tell her crush, Cam, that she has feelings for him. She’s promised herself to confess sometime that year, and with only a week until the year ends, she’s sure it will happen sometime this week.

Maybe.

One of the immediate frustrations I had with this book is how very obvious it is to readers that both Remy and Cam have feelings for each other, yet neither one wants to voice those feelings. There also isn’t a real reason as to why neither one wants to confess until closer to the end of the book (and only on one side), leaving readers to feel as though all of this miscommunication and agonizing over their feelings for each other has no real meaning to it.

Our Cursed Love focuses on Cam losing his memories of Remy and the two fighting to fix this before the week is over, but I was very surprised by how much of the book I had to read until I finally got to this section. While 30% of a book isn’t too far into the story, a majority of books have their setups all finished and jump into the meat of the story by 25%. The pacing of Our Cursed Love just felt weirdly slow, and nothing seemed to matter in the beginning section.

I was also very weirded out by the use of Japanese throughout this book. At times, the Japanese terms and phrases seemed very gratuitous to me (such as the aunt calling Ellie and Jack simply by “Ellie” and “Jack”, but Remy and Cam had to inexplicably be “Remy-chan” and “Cam-kun”, all within the same scene). Despite this book taking place in Japan, it also didn’t feel rooted in any certain location. This book could have taken place anywhere and nothing would have changed.

To go alongside that, this book felt much more like a fantasy book than Julie Abe’s previous work, The Charmed List, which takes place in the same universe (and features Ellie and Jack as main characters). One of my favorite aspects of The Charmed List was how magic was integrated into society while also being hidden away from those who are unaware of magic. In Our Cursed Love, however, the magical world and the normal world felt like two separate places, to the point that nothing in this book felt like it could take place in our world.

I think the biggest reason readers will dislike this book, however, is the culmination of the soulmate plot. Without spoilers, there is a choice the author took in Remy’s soulmate that has me, and I assume a lot of readers who enjoy the idea of soulmates, questioning their beliefs. Are soulmates truly meant for each other, no matter what? Or is there some degree of choice in the decision?

Who Are These People? | No Cooldown For Love by Aliyah Burke

When ex-pro basketball player Mitchell Anderson sees an overturned car on the edge of a cliff during a nasty snowstorm, he knows he has only minutes to rescue the woman trapped inside. What he’s not expecting is their instant attraction, or that she can deliver one hell of a pick-up line even under the most terrifying of circumstances.

Hope Roman’s entire life is on the edge. She’s already overwhelmed with grief and upset, and nearly dying is pretty much the icing on a terrible, soggy cake. So it’s just her luck that she’s suddenly snowbound at a charming little inn with the hottest, yet down right grumpiest, man she’s ever met. And naturally, there’s only one room left.

Now the pillow barrier between them keeps disappearing. And the walls are coming down. But Hope knows she doesn’t belong in Mitchell’s world any more than he belongs in hers. The question is whether either of them can trust the other long enough to play for keeps…

No Cooldown For Love gets published June 26th, 2023!

⭐⭐

Rating: 2 out of 5.

I thought I was really going to enjoy this book, but the writing left much to be desired.

No Cooldown For Love opens with our main male character, Mitchell, deciding to go to Canada for two weeks after a nasty divorce. As he’s returning back home, he finds an upside down car slowly falling off a cliff and saves the woman trapped inside.

Unfortunately, stopping to help her means he gets trapped in a winter storm. And the hotel they go to in order to wait it out is full, leaving them sharing a bed until the storm passes…

Immediately, I was struck with a wish for more detail. If you’ve seen my reviews in the past, you’ll know how out of character this is for me, as I generally tend to find stories bogged down by too much detail. But while reading this book, I found myself wanting more description. More focus on the plot, setting of this small hotel, and the characters themselves. Instead, the book focused almost entirely on how instantly Mitchell and Hope found each other attractive. Their feelings for each other feel unrealistic, popping up suddenly just to move the story along, and I found myself surprised when their first kiss came out of nowhere.

I was also quite annoyed by certain aspects of their relationship, such as Mitchell’s nickname of “Flykra” for Hope. Multiple times throughout the book, Hope asks what the word means, and while Mitchell says he’ll tell her if she asks, he never ends up actually telling her, instead changing the subject every time.

This book tries to be body positive, but really only ends up negatively calling out other body types in order to uplift Hope in a way that was absolutely unappealing to read. The amount of times I had to read this book villainizing women who wear a pant size 0-2 far outweighed any positivity it had for larger body types.

I also found that the conflict came out of nowhere and seemed out of character for Mitchell, like it was only there to throw a twist in the character’s plans for a few pages. In fact, the conflict goes directly against the few details readers are allowed to know about Mitchell’s character, throwing away everything we’ve built throughout the course of the story and leaving readers confused and unsettled by his sudden turn.

I will, however, say that I really enjoyed the relationship between Mitchell and his friends. The banter was amazing, and they seemed like they would always be there for each other, no matter what. It’s easy to tell that the author really has this friendship well thought out and has made sure these characters really click with each other.

I just wish the book clicked.

Historical Western Sapphics | Lucky Red by Claudia Cravens

The heart wants what it wants. Saddle up, ride out, and claim it.

A vibrant and cinematic debut set in the American West about a scrappy orphan who finds friendship, romance, and her true calling as a revenge-seeking gunslinger.

It’s the spring of 1877 and sixteen-year-old Bridget is already disillusioned. She’s exhausted from caring for her ne’er-do-well alcoholic father, but when he’s killed by a snakebite as they cross the Kansas prairie, she knows she has only her wits to keep her alive. She arrives penniless in Dodge City, and, thanks to the allure of her bright red hair and country-girl beauty, is soon recruited to work at the Buffalo Queen, the only brothel in town run by women. Bridget takes to brothel life, appreciating the good food, good pay, and good friendships she forms with her fellow “sporting women.”

Then Spartan Lee, the legendary female gunfighter in the region, rides into town, and Bridget falls in love. Hard. Before long, though, a series of shocking double-crosses shatter the Buffalo Queen’s tenuous peace and safety. Desperate for vengeance and autonomy, Bridget resolves to claim her own destiny.

Lucky Red gets published June 20, 2023!

⭐⭐

Rating: 2 out of 5.

To say that Bridget hasn’t had the best life is a bit of an understatement.

Her mother died in childbirth and her father is an alcoholic, which means that Bridget has spent most of her days relying on herself and cleaning up after her father’s messes. After her father trades away their house for a couple of mules and dies to a rattlesnake bite, Bridget can’t even say she’s surprised.

She does, however, need to find a way to support herself.

Luckily, she makes it to the next town over, where she is picked up off the streets to work in a brothel.

Despite the fact that a majority of this book takes place in a brothel and there is a lot of talk about sex, the book isn’t spicy. I actually really enjoyed that we were talking about this topic as a concept and stuck to a more informational tone, rather than having every single one of Bridget’s interactions with a customer drawn out and sexualized.

On the other hand, Bridget finds out throughout the course of this book that she’s more attracted to her coworkers than she is her customers, and I found the way the book describes sexual moments focused on female characters really interesting! While Bridget’s own work is described very blandly and occurs in the blink of an eye, there are moments in this book where Bridget just so happens to see a coworker working, and those scenes are much more detailed! The writing itself showing Bridget’s attraction to girls even when Bridget herself doesn’t acknowledge it was an interesting detail I enjoyed seeing.

I was also very surprised by the plot of this book, which was a lot different than what I was expecting from this story! Looking back at the description, all the details are there, but I definitely think a lot of readers won’t pick up on anything until they’re actively reading about it in the book!

Unfortunately, that’s also where this book loses me. While I enjoyed seeing Bridget’s character throughout this book and seeing her growth, I wasn’t a fan of the dramatics and the plot itself. I’m not sure how to talk about my issues with this book without also spoiling it for readers, but let’s just say I wouldn’t classify this book as a romance, although it is sapphic and focuses on the relationships between Bridget and two women.

Someone out there is probably going to absolutely adore these historical western sapphics and their story, but this book definitely wasn’t for me!

How To Fall Out Of Love | The Secret Summer Promise by Keah Brown

THE BSE (Best Summer Ever) LIST!
1.        Blueberries
2.        Art show in ShoeHorn
3.        Lizzo concert
4.        Thrift shop pop-up
5.        Skinny Dipping at the lake house
6.        Amusement Park Day!
7.        Drew Barrymarathon
8.        Paintball day

Oh, and ….
9.        Fall out of love with Hailee.

Andrea Williams has got this. The Best Summer Ever. Last summer, she spent all her time in bed, recovering from the latest surgery for her cerebral palsy. She’s waited too long for adventure and thrills to enter her life. Together with her crew of ride-or-die friends, and the best parents anyone could ask for (just don’t tell them that), she’s going to live it up.

There’s just one thing that could ruin Her best friend, Hailee, finding out Andrea’s true feelings. So Andrea WILL fall out of love with Hailee – even if it means dating the cute boy George who keeps showing up everywhere with a smile.

Do we want Andrea to succeed? No! Does she? We’re not telling!

⭐⭐

Rating: 2 out of 5.

One of the unfortunate things about Young Adult as a genre is that there is such a wide variety inside it. There’s so much development going on in your teenage years that you aren’t the same person at the end as you were at the beginning. As such, its hard to accurately judge whether a book about 17 year olds is more on the older or younger ends of the Young Adult genre.

The Secret Summer Promise was more on the younger.

We follow Andrea and Hailee, two best friends creating a list of things they want to accomplish before the summer ends. But Andrea has a secret, ninth thing on that list she wants to complete all by herself: she wants to fall out of love with her best friend.

To be honest, this book felt a little more like a middle grade to me than it did a YA title. The writing was juvenile, and it felt like it was more suited to someone just entering high school than someone about to start their final year.

One of the bigger things I disliked in this book was the relationship between Andrea and Hailee. In order to have a romance readers truly care for, I believe you have to introduce details that make the reader fall in love with the love interest as well, and I just wasn’t getting that out of this book. Instead, the book opens by saying Andrea is in love with Hailee… and then never expands upon that. There are no details as to why Andrea likes Hailee. No reason for readers to care for her as well. It’s just simply “Andrea likes Hailee”.

I cared more for the relationships Andrea had with a few of the side characters, such as George and Olivia. Olivia is Andrea’s ex best friend, and it was very obvious as I read that there was something going on with her behind the scenes. I could imagine a romance developing between her and Andrea better than I could Hailee and Andrea.

George felt the same way to me. Despite his red flags throughout the book, if this book ended with him and Andrea getting into a relationship, I would not have been surprised. There was just more development in both Olivia and George, more of a reason for readers to care about them, than Hailee’s single detail of “Andrea likes Hailee”.

This book had the potential to be good, and while I still think a middle grade audience would really enjoy this story, I’m not a fan of juvenile writing and no details about our love interest.

Mates In 48 Hours? | Bear Essentials by Lia Davis

Fresh from an ugly breakup that trampled her spirit, Nichole just wants to hide away. Unfortunately, her BFF has other plans. Nichole gets dragged to a girls’ night out at new club called The Claw, where she meets the intense and gorgeous Trey Black. With eyes that burn and a body built for sin, any woman would sit up and take notice. But why bother? Men like him didn’t date women like her.

Trey considers it a good day if he can just stay out of trouble. As the youngest son of the bear Alpha, he’s a master at getting his way. When he meets the curvy, raven-haired goddess, Nichole, he realizes exactly what he wants and knows that she’s worth any amount of trouble. All he has to do is seduce all of her insecurities away and claim her as his bonded mate.

⭐⭐

Rating: 2 out of 5.

This book just went by too quick for me.

To be fair, it is 120 pages. It’s a novella. But I felt like there could have been a little more development.

We follow Nichole, a girl who recently got dumped by her boyfriend and is still dealing with the aftermath. She’s sitting in a café, looking up jobs she can apply for, when she meets Trey for the first time.

Trey, a werebear who is sure Nichole is his mate.

Their romance is very instalove-y, as expected for this genre, but I thought this entire story went a little too fast for an instalove. The entire book takes place over 48 hours, and we get a lot of random details thrown in all at once. For example, Nichole is a human who knows of shifters because her friend is a witch (a detail that comes out of nowhere), but throughout the course of this book, Nichole finds out she may also be a witch (or, at the very least, has witch blood in her family). But we don’t focus even a little on that or Nichole’s feelings, instead moving immediately to the next part of the book.

I also wasn’t a fan of the “body positivity” in this book and how it was displayed. Nichole is insecure about her weight because of her ex-boyfriend, but Trey wants to make sure she knows he loves her just the way she is. What a great message! But the way he shows it is by… going against her wishes? She orders a diet coke and he, just after meeting her and without really having a conversation before this, specifically makes sure she gets a coke instead. He asks her what she wants for breakfast, and after she says he probably wouldn’t let her have yogurt, he decides himself she’s gonna have French toast.

(Granted, his sister had just brought over French toast for them, but still. Why ask what she wanted? Why not offer “hey, my sister brought French toast. Do you want some?”)

It was a little too close to feederism for me.

Ring of Solomon by Aden Polydoros | An ARC Review

The little beachside town of San Pancras is not known for anything exciting, but when Zach Darlington buys a mysterious ring at the local flea market, his quiet little hometown is turned topsy-turvy by monsters straight from Jewish folklore and a nefarious secret society focused on upholding an apocalyptic prophecy.
Zach discovers that the ring grants him strange powers, and he’s intrigued; maybe he can use the ring’s strengths to halt the slew of anti-Semitic and homophobic bullying he’s experiencing at school. But soon the ring brings unexpected visitors—Ashmedai, King of Demons, in the guise of a preteen boy named Ash, and the local chapter of the Knights of the Apocalypse, a secret society intent on completing a creepy prophecy that will bring three monsters to Earth to start the events of the end of times.
Now responsible for the ring and its consequences, will Zach and his friends, with the help of Ash, be able to stop the Apocalypse and save the world?

Ring of Solomon gets published February 21st, 2023

⭐⭐

Rating: 2 out of 5.

I was really excited to read this, as it seemed like a queer, Jewish, Percy Jackson-esque story. But I wasn’t a big fan of the writing style.

In Ring of Solomon, we follow Zach, a young boy who is searching for a gift for his mom’s birthday and finds an antique ring. Just before he hands it over, he realizes the ring gives him the ability to talk to animals. Oh, and it summons Ashmedai, King of Demons.

Soon, Zach and Ash, alongside Zach’s best friend, Sandra, find themselves having to take down a secret society and the monsters they summon to bring forth the apocalypse.

The tone of this book was very humorous and enjoyable to read, but I wasn’t as big of a fan on the pacing and actual content of this story.

For one, this book doesn’t go as far into detail on the history of the ring and Ashmedai as I hoped it would, leaving me feeling as though I got some basics of the story, but I wasn’t really understanding the story. Maybe this is because I’m not Jewish and I know nothing about religion in general, but I expected this book to have a bit more beginner explanation than it did.

I also wasn’t a big fan of how fast this book was going. I had assumed going into this that, with the story focusing on three monsters being summoned in order to bring the apocalypse, this would be a trilogy with each book focused on one monster. That we’d have some build up where Zach learned about the monster, developed a strategy to defeat it, and then went out and tried his best. Instead, we very quickly went between two monsters in this book without any development in between, which made the story feel too fast and like these monsters weren’t as big of a deal as the author was trying to make them be. You’re telling me the bringers of the apocalypse can be defeated by a boy and the sword he has no training with?

One other thing that bothered me was that there was no reason it had to be Zach specifically. There was no “Zach is the one in the prophecy who will take down these monsters”. No “Zach had found out he has magical powers that will help him save the day”. Zach just so happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and thus it was “up to him” to defeat these monsters. While I understand the choice for Zach not to be special in any way may have been in order to let the target audience of this book (children) feel as though they could be in Zach’s shoes, fighting these monsters themselves, it also made no sense that it had to be Zach and not anyone else who was slightly more competent.

I think the general idea of this story was good, but the execution left much to be desired.

May The Best Man Win by Z.R. Ellor | A Review

Jeremy Harkiss, cheer captain and student body president, won’t let coming out as a transgender boy ruin his senior year. Instead of bowing to the bigots and outdate school administration, Jeremy decides to make some noise—and how better than by challenging his all-star ex-boyfriend, Lukas for the title of Homecoming King?
Lukas Rivers, football star and head of the Homecoming Committee, is just trying to find order in his life after his older brother’s funeral and the loss of his long-term girlfriend—who turned out to be a boy. But when Jeremy threatens to break his heart and steal his crown, Lukas kick starts a plot to sabotage Jeremy’s campaign.
When both boys take their rivalry too far, the dance is on the verge of being canceled. To save Homecoming, they’ll have to face the hurt they’re both hiding—and the lingering butterflies they can’t deny.

⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 2.5 out of 5.

Don’t you hate when books you’re excited to read end up being not that great?

For this book, my dislike entirely rests upon these characters. Both Jeremy and Lukas were just infuriating to read about.

Jeremy is the first student to medically transition in his school, which makes him feel a lot of pressure to be “the best man he can be”. He feels everyone’s eyes on him, judging him for every aspect he deems “too girly” or “not man enough”, and he wants to win Homecoming King solely to feel valid in his gender identity.

Lukas, on the other hand, is autistic, but doesn’t want anyone to know. He’s struggling in class and knows he can solve all his problems if he just tells the school his diagnosis and take the resources they can provide him, but thinks instead he’ll be fine so long as he can push through it. He wants to win Homecoming King to get the scholarship and prove he’s good enough for something in life.

Both Jeremy and Lukas have ideas of how others will treat them that aren’t grounded in reality and experience, and they lash out when they feel threatened by these ideas, too afraid to try to make their “situations” better.

The entire book felt like a lowkey version of trauma porn. Nothing ever seemed to go right for these characters.

But I can, at least, commend this book on it’s character growth. Both Jeremy and Lukas weren’t the best versions of themselves throughout most of this book, but by the end, they developed into better people. They learned from their actions in this book.

But at no part of this book was it an enjoyable reading experience.