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darkmattersoybean's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Bullying, Transphobia, Homophobia, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Sexism, Outing, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Alcohol, Blood, Body shaming, Sexual content, Racism, Emotional abuse, and Gaslighting
Minor: Sexual assault and Sexual harassment
longlost's review
adventurous
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
This. This sure was a book.
I really wanted to like this book. Autistic rep AND queer rep ?? All I want in life. Unfortunately I just could not vibe with the book or its characters.
Lukas and Jeremy's relationship was not enjoyable to read about during most points of the book. It came off as TOO mean-spirited so so often and I genuinely don't see whythey ended up getting back together. Jeremy treated Lukas like shit, and while I understand that Jeremy was hurt by Lukas's comment on the day they broke up he also uses it as an excuse to vilify Lukas when like. There is no reasonable way he could have known how to respond to Jeremy at that point. Also he KNOWS Lukas is autistic and therefore has trouble w/ social shit, and yet it never occurs to him to say "hey, I broke up with you because of that comment you made, not because you somehow did a bunch of things wrong in our three years of dating" which we see Lukas is worried about from the chapters in his POV. Naomi and Sol were fun however. I liked them.
I DID enjoy the queer power message in this book, and while I didn't enjoy the shitty school system it also reflects reality unfortunately so. I wish I could have liked this book more because I'm 100% behind Jeremy's fight to change the Code so that the harassment he's facing is Actually Acknowledged but I couldn't stand the main plot of fighting over the Homecoming crown even if I could sympathize with both character's motivations. The actions they took against each other just felt too mean-spirited.
I really wanted to like this book. Autistic rep AND queer rep ?? All I want in life. Unfortunately I just could not vibe with the book or its characters.
Lukas and Jeremy's relationship was not enjoyable to read about during most points of the book. It came off as TOO mean-spirited so so often and I genuinely don't see why
I DID enjoy the queer power message in this book, and while I didn't enjoy the shitty school system it also reflects reality unfortunately so. I wish I could have liked this book more because I'm 100% behind Jeremy's fight to change the Code so that the harassment he's facing is Actually Acknowledged but I couldn't stand the main plot of fighting over the Homecoming crown even if I could sympathize with both character's motivations. The actions they took against each other just felt too mean-spirited.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Transphobia, Homophobia, Bullying, Ableism, Deadnaming, Hate crime, Violence, Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship, Sexism, Grief, Dysphoria, Cursing, Misogyny, Infidelity, Emotional abuse, and Child abuse
Moderate: Sexual assault, Physical abuse, Sexual harassment, Self harm, Blood, Death, Racism, and Alcohol
Minor: Car accident, Medical content, and Injury/Injury detail
alyshkalia's review
emotional
medium-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Transphobia, Bullying, Homophobia, and Ableism
Moderate: Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Grief, Dysphoria, Deadnaming, and Medical content
Minor: Death, Sexual harassment, Car accident, Racism, Vomit, and Suicidal thoughts
reading_ray's review
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Alcohol, Bullying, Child death, Homophobia, Physical abuse, Racism, and Transphobia
Moderate: Sexual assault
Minor: Deadnaming
rey_therese07's review against another edition
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism and Transphobia
Moderate: Deadnaming, Injury/Injury detail, and Misogyny
Minor: Antisemitism, Death, Domestic abuse, Grief, and Racism
peachpit_gabe's review
challenging
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: Ableism, Biphobia, Bullying, Death, Deadnaming, Homophobia, Lesbophobia, Racism, and Transphobia
paperbrownies's review against another edition
5.0
- lgbtqiap+, ya contemporary, rivals to lovers, mental health rep
- m|m
- trans gay mc, queer autistic mc, latinx trans nonbinary sc, asian sc s and other queer characters (minor lesbian, polyamory and asexual, rep)
"I’m a big believer that queer people don’t need to be perfect to deserve love, and Jeremy and Lukas’ story reflects that." -z r ellor
YES!! IT DOES!! AND I LOVE THIS BOOK FOR THAT!!!! (:
wow,,,, this book!!
jeremy and lukas are hard rivals and their rivalry shows in the hardest ways yet i could not stop reading about these messy characters even tho they made me SO mad. am not going to excuse their behaviour and neither did the author; he let his characters hurt but also gave them a chance to heal and come back stronger than ever!!
it's a hard book to read but a page turner that you must add to your tbr and also bc we need more trans stories!! which is why i will recommend y'all not go into it thinking that it's a rom-com even though yes, it does have romance in it. problematic behaviour including misogyny, bullying transphobia, and ableism is called out. (also check tw)
i found the rivals to lovers trope done really well although i admit the ending could have been a bit less hurried. lastly i really wish that the asian parents were not stereotyped in that way!!
tw: violent transphobia, ableism, alcohol consumption, misgendering, deadnaming, the f slur, death of sibling (off page), verbal and physical abuse, violence, blood, bullying.
- m|m
- trans gay mc, queer autistic mc, latinx trans nonbinary sc, asian sc s and other queer characters (minor lesbian, polyamory and asexual, rep)
"I’m a big believer that queer people don’t need to be perfect to deserve love, and Jeremy and Lukas’ story reflects that." -z r ellor
YES!! IT DOES!! AND I LOVE THIS BOOK FOR THAT!!!! (:
wow,,,, this book!!
jeremy and lukas are hard rivals and their rivalry shows in the hardest ways yet i could not stop reading about these messy characters even tho they made me SO mad. am not going to excuse their behaviour and neither did the author; he let his characters hurt but also gave them a chance to heal and come back stronger than ever!!
it's a hard book to read but a page turner that you must add to your tbr and also bc we need more trans stories!! which is why i will recommend y'all not go into it thinking that it's a rom-com even though yes, it does have romance in it. problematic behaviour including misogyny, bullying transphobia, and ableism is called out. (also check tw)
i found the rivals to lovers trope done really well although i admit the ending could have been a bit less hurried. lastly i really wish that the asian parents were not stereotyped in that way!!
tw: violent transphobia, ableism, alcohol consumption, misgendering, deadnaming, the f slur, death of sibling (off page), verbal and physical abuse, violence, blood, bullying.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Blood, Deadnaming, Physical abuse, Transphobia, and Violence
Moderate: Alcoholism
Minor: Death and Racism
jenny_d's review against another edition
emotional
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Transphobia, Homophobia, Toxic relationship, and Dysphoria
Moderate: Deadnaming, Violence, Racism, and Drug use
seawarrior's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
To begin with, this book isn't a fluffy romantic comedy. If that's the type of story you're set on reading you may not be able to appreciate it. This was a difficult book to read at times, yet as a trans autistic man, I felt like I saw myself in both Jeremy and Lukas' perspectives and experiences.
Both boys could be horrible throughout the story. I spent most of it angry with Jeremy in particular. However, I did see my own angry, terrified, newly transitioning teenage self reflected in his rage and self destructive views. Anger is a key theme throughout the book; Jeremy takes it out on others, while Lukas turns it against himself.
It's not exactly rewarding to see the ugliest parts of transitioning into a boy transcribed into words, but I do feel it's important. It's rare to find stories that tackle the grief and the rage that trying to find yourself again as a self-made man can inspire. Walking the line between rejecting toxic masculinity from your personhood and protecting yourself from the wrath those who embrace it feel towards you can feel like an everlosing war, especially when trapped in environments with hateful men who are never held accountable. At the same time, we risk losing formerly close relationships with cisgender women who struggle to understand us as both a male and as someone who's experienced similar gender-based violence all our lives. Finding community again in these circumstances can be rough, but it is possible once we learn to let our anger evaporate and trust that our loved ones will protect us once we part with the armor that rage provides. I feel relieved to find a story that embraces these difficult issues as a part of it while still reminding the reader that our lives aren't as hopeless as they can sometimes feel.
I was also excited to find out that Lukas was autistic. His own struggles with wanting to control how people viewed him felt really relatable to me too. Yet I didn't feel he was able to have his tangled emotions and self-hatred resolved as much as Jeremy did, which was disappointing.It would have been nice to see him find community with more neurodivergent people the way Jeremy eventually did with other queer students. I wouldn't have minded reading a much longer book for this to have happened. I really loved Lukas and following his journey of self discovery.
Overall, this story was one I really loved. It presents itself less as puzzle piece that fits exactly in place to validate the reader and more like a series of ever-shifting mechanisms that shy away from snapping together so simply. I don't think that's necessarily a flaw. These characters hold a lot of meaning for me and I expect them to stick with me for a long time. If their author ever wants to continue their story, I would be delighted to re-enter their world.
Both boys could be horrible throughout the story. I spent most of it angry with Jeremy in particular. However, I did see my own angry, terrified, newly transitioning teenage self reflected in his rage and self destructive views. Anger is a key theme throughout the book; Jeremy takes it out on others, while Lukas turns it against himself.
It's not exactly rewarding to see the ugliest parts of transitioning into a boy transcribed into words, but I do feel it's important. It's rare to find stories that tackle the grief and the rage that trying to find yourself again as a self-made man can inspire. Walking the line between rejecting toxic masculinity from your personhood and protecting yourself from the wrath those who embrace it feel towards you can feel like an everlosing war, especially when trapped in environments with hateful men who are never held accountable. At the same time, we risk losing formerly close relationships with cisgender women who struggle to understand us as both a male and as someone who's experienced similar gender-based violence all our lives. Finding community again in these circumstances can be rough, but it is possible once we learn to let our anger evaporate and trust that our loved ones will protect us once we part with the armor that rage provides. I feel relieved to find a story that embraces these difficult issues as a part of it while still reminding the reader that our lives aren't as hopeless as they can sometimes feel.
I was also excited to find out that Lukas was autistic. His own struggles with wanting to control how people viewed him felt really relatable to me too. Yet I didn't feel he was able to have his tangled emotions and self-hatred resolved as much as Jeremy did, which was disappointing.
Overall, this story was one I really loved. It presents itself less as puzzle piece that fits exactly in place to validate the reader and more like a series of ever-shifting mechanisms that shy away from snapping together so simply. I don't think that's necessarily a flaw. These characters hold a lot of meaning for me and I expect them to stick with me for a long time. If their author ever wants to continue their story, I would be delighted to re-enter their world.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Bullying, Cursing, Dysphoria, Grief, Hate crime, Homophobia, Sexual assault, Transphobia, and Violence
Moderate: Fatphobia, Biphobia, Drug use, Alcohol, Antisemitism, and Racism
joinreallife's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
sad
tense
3.5
Most important thing to know about this book is that it is not a romcom. I think the kind of framing around it of dating to exes to enemies to lovers made me think that, and it was not something that was explicitly used as marketing language, but I want to clarify for anyone else who might have made the same inference based on the tropes and the cover. Which is so interesting, because some of my favourite adult romances have illustrated covers and that's never been an indication to me that they're "just fluff" and devoid of serious things. In fact, kind of the opposite..
Boy howdy, this book was tough. There is A LOT of trauma represented here. And also, a really important look at identity and how messy and shitty teenagers are, and about internalized and socialized gender roles, and communication, and community. Jeremy and Lukas are both in their senior year at what essentially seems to be a prep school. There's lots of alumni-backed money specifically for Homecoming, and the whole book centers around the lead-up to the big game/dance. They used to date. Jeremy came out as trans recently, he breaks up with Lukas in a pretty drastic way (on the day of Lukas' brother's funeral) for reasons that are unclear to Lukas, now they're mortal enemies and are competing for the role of Homecoming King. Even before they were dating, they had been best friends for a really long time, so they have a lot of the same friends, and there's approximately a metric shit-ton of drama that ensues. Lukas is also grappling with being autistic but not wanting anyone at school to know about that, so rather than ask for accommodations for his disability, he decides to cheat. (I've seen some criticisms that the autism rep only comes up with relevance to Lukas' schoolwork, but it's pretty obvious to me that a big part of the miscommunications that happen are people expecting Lukas to pick up on social cues that he has trouble reading, and them getting upset when he doesn't get it. So that criticism doesn't really hold water to me, but I'm also not an autistic reviewer, so I can't speak 100% to that.)
If you are a person who needs to like the main characters to enjoy a book, I would think twice about this one. Then again, if you are a person who doesn't remember what it was like to be in high school...I mean, I don't know anyone who was perfectly likeable in high school. Though I have not been a trans boy in high school, I have been a post-trauma kid in high school, imagining that I should hurt other people before they have a chance to hurt me. I found that so relatable. I ALSO was the kid who covered immense sadness with anger because anger is an easier, more familiar emotion to deal with. Was Jeremy truly terrible to people who he claimed were friends? Yes. Is there really a satisfactory resolution to that, or a true reckoning for Jeremy about how incredibly self-centered he is? Not really. But one of the most interesting aspects of this book to me was the kind of overcorrection that Jeremy feels he has to do to convince everyone that he's a boy, which feels like the root of so much of his hurtful behavior. Imagining how it must feel to have something that feels so obvious to you be something you need to convince people of, that you have to constantly defend...I understand where the overcorrection comes from. So in order to make sure that people see him as a guy, Jeremy adopts some aspects of toxic masculinity, telling himself he has to do certain things because "that's what a guy would do" AND to distance himself from anything that might be seen as "feminine" because there's always the risk that people will think that he's not serious about being trans. Ellor mirrors that with a class assignment where Jeremy has to create a persuasive speech about a particular hot topic, and his is trans rights. Yikes. That was so devastating to read, honestly, that any trans person but a teenager especially has to spend their brain power worrying about that stuff rather than just being an idiot kid.
There were a couple of things that brought it down a star(ish) in my mind. I think the ending resolved too quickly for my tastes, and there were a number of things that didn't really get wrapped up as a result. The treatment of the "side characters" felt pretty crummy, they really only exist as vehicles for Jeremy and Lukas and not as people in their own right (though I would love to read a book about whatever's going on with Sol and Naomi), and I didn't love that. It could have been a really great opportunity for found family and queer community, and I think that Ellor was trying to elicit that feel, but since it wasn't the A (or B or C) plot, it didn't really develop in the way that I would have liked to see. Lukas' realization that he's not straight was less an epiphany and more of a throwaway, which felt strange to me, but I suppose that's how it might be for some folks when they're realizing their sexuality (though it wasn't for me) and it's true that there were about a fafillion other things happening in his life. I do think there was, like, one thing too many for me here, but overall, I'm glad to have read it and I can already tell it's one that I'm going to be thinking about it often.
Thanks to NetGalley and MacMillan Children's Publishing Group/Roaring Brook Press for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Boy howdy, this book was tough. There is A LOT of trauma represented here. And also, a really important look at identity and how messy and shitty teenagers are, and about internalized and socialized gender roles, and communication, and community. Jeremy and Lukas are both in their senior year at what essentially seems to be a prep school. There's lots of alumni-backed money specifically for Homecoming, and the whole book centers around the lead-up to the big game/dance. They used to date. Jeremy came out as trans recently, he breaks up with Lukas in a pretty drastic way (on the day of Lukas' brother's funeral) for reasons that are unclear to Lukas, now they're mortal enemies and are competing for the role of Homecoming King. Even before they were dating, they had been best friends for a really long time, so they have a lot of the same friends, and there's approximately a metric shit-ton of drama that ensues. Lukas is also grappling with being autistic but not wanting anyone at school to know about that, so rather than ask for accommodations for his disability, he decides to cheat. (I've seen some criticisms that the autism rep only comes up with relevance to Lukas' schoolwork, but it's pretty obvious to me that a big part of the miscommunications that happen are people expecting Lukas to pick up on social cues that he has trouble reading, and them getting upset when he doesn't get it. So that criticism doesn't really hold water to me, but I'm also not an autistic reviewer, so I can't speak 100% to that.)
If you are a person who needs to like the main characters to enjoy a book, I would think twice about this one. Then again, if you are a person who doesn't remember what it was like to be in high school...I mean, I don't know anyone who was perfectly likeable in high school. Though I have not been a trans boy in high school, I have been a post-trauma kid in high school, imagining that I should hurt other people before they have a chance to hurt me. I found that so relatable. I ALSO was the kid who covered immense sadness with anger because anger is an easier, more familiar emotion to deal with. Was Jeremy truly terrible to people who he claimed were friends? Yes. Is there really a satisfactory resolution to that, or a true reckoning for Jeremy about how incredibly self-centered he is? Not really. But one of the most interesting aspects of this book to me was the kind of overcorrection that Jeremy feels he has to do to convince everyone that he's a boy, which feels like the root of so much of his hurtful behavior. Imagining how it must feel to have something that feels so obvious to you be something you need to convince people of, that you have to constantly defend...I understand where the overcorrection comes from. So in order to make sure that people see him as a guy, Jeremy adopts some aspects of toxic masculinity, telling himself he has to do certain things because "that's what a guy would do" AND to distance himself from anything that might be seen as "feminine" because there's always the risk that people will think that he's not serious about being trans. Ellor mirrors that with a class assignment where Jeremy has to create a persuasive speech about a particular hot topic, and his is trans rights. Yikes. That was so devastating to read, honestly, that any trans person but a teenager especially has to spend their brain power worrying about that stuff rather than just being an idiot kid.
There were a couple of things that brought it down a star(ish) in my mind. I think the ending resolved too quickly for my tastes, and there were a number of things that didn't really get wrapped up as a result. The treatment of the "side characters" felt pretty crummy, they really only exist as vehicles for Jeremy and Lukas and not as people in their own right (though I would love to read a book about whatever's going on with Sol and Naomi), and I didn't love that. It could have been a really great opportunity for found family and queer community, and I think that Ellor was trying to elicit that feel, but since it wasn't the A (or B or C) plot, it didn't really develop in the way that I would have liked to see. Lukas' realization that he's not straight was less an epiphany and more of a throwaway, which felt strange to me, but I suppose that's how it might be for some folks when they're realizing their sexuality (though it wasn't for me) and it's true that there were about a fafillion other things happening in his life. I do think there was, like, one thing too many for me here, but overall, I'm glad to have read it and I can already tell it's one that I'm going to be thinking about it often.
Thanks to NetGalley and MacMillan Children's Publishing Group/Roaring Brook Press for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Transphobia, Deadnaming, Bullying, Homophobia, Ableism, Grief, and Physical abuse
Moderate: Death, Toxic relationship, Sexual assault, Racism, Hate crime, Car accident, and Biphobia