e-Audio, 09:10:32
Narrated by: Bebe Wood
Release Date: April 20, 2021
Published by: Balzer + Bray
Read from: May 29- June 2, 2021
Stand-alone
Source: Library (Overdrive)
TW:
For Readers Interested In: Contemporary, Romance, Realistic Fiction, LGBTQIAP+, YAContrary to popular belief, best friends Kate Garfield and Anderson Walker are not codependent. Carpooling to and from theater rehearsals? Environmentally sound and efficient. Consulting each other on every single life decision? Basic good judgment. Pining for the same guys from afar? Shared crushes are more fun anyway.
But when Kate and Andy’s latest long-distance crush shows up at their school, everything goes off script. Matt Olsson is talented and sweet, and Kate likes him. She really likes him. The only problem? So does Anderson.
Turns out, communal crushes aren’t so fun when real feelings are involved. This one might even bring the curtains down on Kate and Anderson’s friendship.
*MY THOUGHTS*
When I saw there was another Albertalli book coming out I didn’t hesitate to smash that “Want to Read” button. I don’t even remember reading the synopsis for it. This book showed me that I definitely should have though, even though I love the author…
Kate and Anderson do everything together. From riding to school together to having crushes on the same guy. But when one guy seems like he might be more than just a crush for one of them, things get weird. Will they be weird enough to end these best friends?
This had way too much drama for me. You would think I would have known that before I started reading this, but unfortunately I did not read the synopsis before I cracked it open. I am not a fan of friends sharing dates. It just is too much like cheating to me. I almost DNF’ed this, but I was already too far by the time I decided I should do it. But I should have. I didn’t really like much else about this….
Then there was the writing style. For most of this book I didn’t even recognize Albertalli’s writing voice. Like this whole “F- Boy/girl” thing was way too much. I should have counted how many times it was said throughout the whole book. It had to be at least twice on EVERY page. It was funny at the first mention of it, but after that I was over it. And the plot wasn’t exactly ground-breaking either. I knew exactly what was going to happen. This book was 100% predictable. Normally I wouldn’t have a problem with that because it’s a contemp romance and they’re usually easy to figure out, but because I wasn’t a fan of much else about this, I just didn’t like it.
The characters and the setting were the only things I really liked about this. The setting of the theater was pretty cool. I really liked seeing (???) all the references to the theater and learning more about them. And the characters were nice. I liked Kate and Anderson. Well I liked them more apart than together, but still. Their humor was my type of humor and there was even a mention of liking Stacy Abrahams, so I did like that about them.
There wasn’t much about this that I liked, and that was hella disappointing. I wanted so bad for the first book not in the Simon-verse to be complete gold, but it wasn’t even close. And looking at other reviews, I’m not alone. But if you’ve read it and think differently, let me know what you think about it!
Overall, I give this
