Ophelia After All

Publishes: February 8th, 2022
Queer, contemporary, YA

This is one of my favorite reads of 2022. Now, is it February 1st? Yes. However. This book's got everything you want in a YA novel:
1) Incredible characterization
2) The voice! Excellent use of voice!
3) It's here, it's queer, it's fantastique
4) Also the main character is a botanist and really intensely into roses and I've never been more delighted about this??

This book is like the experience of reading a really really good short story in a Dahlia Adler anthology and then it goes on for the FULL NOVEL EXPERIENCE. I'm in love with this book. Five stars. 

I love queer YA contemporaries so as soon as I heard about his book, I knew I wanted to check it out. This was a great story of coming to terms with your sexuality and I think it's an important story for teenagers. I really liked that dispite this being a book about queer love, there wasn't really a romance, it was mostly about the main character learning about herself with the support of her friends. It was also cool seeing a mixed race main character, I feel I don't come across that very often and it's nice to see.




Thank you to Macmillan Children's Publishing Group, Feiwel & Friends, RB Media, Recorded Books, and NetGalley for providing me with both an eBook and an Audiobook copy to review.

This book was going in exactly the direction I was expecting it to for about 200 pages...until it wasn't.

I expected this to be a chill, coming-of-age bisexual realisation story where she gets the girl and has a brilliant prom. That is not what happened.
Ophelia is a great character. Her personality is very clear from the beginning and she's a very enjoyable character. Her relationships with her friends, Agatha, Sammie, and Wesley were all very entertaining and sweet, and her crush on Talia and relationship with her was also very cute. I was really not expecting anything more than a simple bisexual love story, but this book completely overted my expectations.

Ophelia does NOT get the girl!! I was kind of gutted when I read that, but to be honest, it was a lot more realistic than a lot of books I've read.
Ophelia's subsequent hanging outs with Wesley were so, so good and her going to the LGBTQ+ centre was a wonderful scene.
I really appreciated the LGBTQ+ representation in this book, as well as the very realistic depictions of friendship in a big group, with Ophelia realising she was never really friends with Lindsay, but being able to enjoy her company regardless.
Ophelia being taken to prom by Sammie and Agatha was so wholesome and adorable and this book did such a great job of demonstrating the value of friendship, and the end of the book was so utterly heartwarming. (Also, it was great to see two bisexual characters in opposite gender relationships - I feel like there's never any rep for that!)