Imogen, Obviously

This was a really hard book for me to read. And I'm not talking about quality; Becky Albertalli is a fantastic writer, and I absolutely loved the book (more on that later). But it brought up some memories; of being a freshman in college, surrounded by my brand new, very queer friend group. Questioning myself, but hiding the very, very obvious truth beneath layer after layer of imposter syndrome. Feeling like I wasn't queer enough, because I hadn't always known, and I wasn't visibly queer, even though deep down, I knew that I wasn't the kind of person who craved visibility.

So yeah, reading this book pushed me back through a rollercoaster of emotions and memories I'd mostly forgotten about, a chapter of my life I mostly skip over, the good and bad. Imogen is an extremely compelling character, and Albertalli's writing does an excellent job putting you right in her head. Imogen's journey is extremely compelling, managing to feel extremely relatable without feeling generic. I'm not usually a fan of books that can feel a little heavy handed with discourse, but Albertalli carefully navigates a subset of queer discourse so expertly, that I couldn't help but get engaged, no matter how close to home it hit.