This Is Kind of an Epic Love Story

This incredibly cute queer romance was the YA_Pride Book Club pick this month on Twitter. What I didn't expect when I picked it up was just HOW GOOD the representation is in this book. First, Ollie, the main love interest, is deaf, and communicates via ASL or written word. This isn't a huge deal; people just work around it, which is really lovely. There's a lot of passing phones around with things typed out on them, plus lip-reading and some limited use of signs, many of them described on the page for the reader.

The other amazing representation is how the book treats bisexuality. Both Nate and his best friend Flo are bi; they dated each other before the beginning of the book, but Flo is dating a woman when the book opens, and Nate has a huge crush on Ollie. This is not treated as weird, or even remarkable enough to be noted. They just are interested in more than one gender and it's completely normal. I love it.

The story itself is really cute; Ollie was a childhood best friend that Nate had a crush on, and he's come back to town several years later. Turns out Nate's crush still exists, and the boys start an awkward romance. Nate is the kind of overthinker that constantly sabotages his own happiness, and we see that play out in more than just his relationship with Ollie.

I also really liked that the book didn't play into the “the first time with the right person is magical and perfect” trope when it comes to sex. No, first times are awkward and sometimes not all that pleasurable, even with the right person. But with the right person, you can get past the awkwardness and try again. It was a much more realistic first sexual experience, I think.

This book was a quick read, with great minority rep, from racial to sexual to disability rep. The story was great. I liked also that the romance wasn't the only focus of the story; Nate's relationships with his friends were also important to the plot. Great book.

You can find all my reviews at Goddess in the Stacks.

i would take my rating with a grain of salt as it's heavily influenced by how much i enjoyed the book as a person who is very much not within the YA age range anymore (as always, my ratings are highly subjective and should be taken with a grain of salt.... every time)

thoughts to come in a vlog, but most important things 1) i love kacen callender's voice, which has been strong and distinct since the beginning 2) i really need to stop reading YA contemporary when YA is not my contemporary anymore 3) sexy times via audiobook ruin it for me and i'm SORRY i really am

this book would be infinitely better if oliver james hernández was the protagonist instead of nathan bird...

honestly everyone in this book was either annoying and/or underdeveloped and the fact that ollie gave nate multiple chances after nate treated him so poorly throughout the book was just so baffling that having the pov from his side would have just made more sense.

nate never seemed to know what he wanted, which i guess is true of a lot of 16 year olds but nothing about his character was compelling and i spent the entire book just thinking “why do i care?” short answer: i didn't