Reviews with content warning for Outing - Margo Zimmerman Gets the Girl

Margo Zimmerman Gets the Girl is, well it's about Margo Zimmerman getting the girl. The summer before Margo's last year of high school Margo discovers that she's a lesbian. In a bid to learn more about the queer community and how to fit in she strikes a deal with openly bisexual, Abbie, who agrees to teaching Margo in exchange for AP US History tutoring.

I am very split on how I feel about this book.

First, I loved that it was queer Jewish rep, but without really any homophobia or antisemtism. I think this is only the second book I've read with Jewish characters where 'G-d' is used, it's also one of the ways I knew that they were Jewish before the line that confirmed it (I would have been very surprised if a character with a brother named Mendel wasn't Jewish).

I also really liked Margo on the whole as a character. She was very relatable in a lot of ways and I always appreciate that. On the flip side, I had a hard time with Abbie. She was was quick to be angry with Margo often and a lot of her "flirting" just came off mean so it was harder for me to take that as any build up to them having a relationship. Abbie has a lot of character growth and not all characters need to be nice, but they also kind of do when the story wants me to root for her to get together with another one. I did think that they had good communication though. This was most notable at the end of the book during what would usually be the "yay we're finally together, oh no! miscommunication, look we've made up, the end!". Instead we get them together and then Margo does not let that miscommunication happen, which was fantastic!

I thought Mendel was an interesting character, but it felt completely blindsiding for Margo to just "oh yeah my sibling is non-binary/agender/genderqueer" when you're 80% of the way through the book. That's something the audience should be told at the beginning.

A lot of things felt incredibly dragged out, but especially the back and forth with both Margo and Abbie denying feelings/she's not my type while very obviously actually having feelings. It felt like we could have come to the conclusion sooner or at least done more to show the building of feelings past thinking the other was hot. I'm not denying either of them having a crush, but Margo claiming to love Abbie by the end felt like about a hundred steps were missing on the way from crush to love.

Charlie. I really hated Charlie. I know that part of Abbie's growth came from realizing how terrible of a friend that Charlie was, but Charlie was a truly terrible friend and part of the queer community. Again, I know that was the point and I think it gave a good jumping off point for Abbie to realize the way she was telling Margo she had to do things like stand, sit, walk, dress to be taken seriously as queer was wrong.

The sex scene at the end was waaaaaaay more explicit than I was expecting out of a YA book and I realize I am not the intended audience of this book but it still felt like it pushed the YA grouping just a bit.

Thank you to NetGalley and Inkyard Press for making this available in exchange for an honest review!

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