Reviews with content warning for Outing - Where We Go From Here

Reviews tagging 'Outing'

Where We Go From Here by Lucas Rocha

19 reviews

ramreadsagain's review

challenging emotional informative medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

I picked this up on impulse and wish I had read more about it first, I didn’t realise it was a young adult book. I’ve definitely outgrown the genre and it’s just not for me.

Outside of that though this is a good book. It covers an important topic that I wish I had known more about when I was younger, and it even taught me a couple of things today. It’s also a really nice story, covering three different perspectives.

I wish there was more development of their friendship. A lot of the narration was devoted to irrelevant descriptions and the pacing was a bit off at times. Furthermore the Henrique/Victor romance felt “rushed” just because most of it happened before the book started so we don’t really see them interact much which lead me to not be invested in the romance. It has a bit of a “tell not show” issue as well and I felt that the moral of the story was a bit heavyhanded but I understand that these are often standard characteristics of young adult books.

I’d recommend it for fans of YA.

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emmamem's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful inspiring fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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snowydaze's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful informative inspiring sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Absolutely loved it, it was very informative but also had strong character development.

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adhdru's review against another edition

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Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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bibliophilicrichard's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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alibader's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

This was the first book I have ever read that discussed HIV and I think it was great. I really enjoyed the character of Ian and his storyline I thought it was the most compelling. Since this book switches POVs every chapter I was surprisingly never confused and I thought each character had his own unique voice (although maybe that was due to the audiobook having different narrators).

However, my issues with the book are like many of the other reviews, at some points the plot wasn't making sense and things happened way too fast towards the end. The epilogue

breaks the fourth wall for some reason (??).

And at some points the writing (especially in doctor appointment scenes) felt like I was reading a textbook.

I would 100% recommend this to readers who want to learn more about HIV with an, especially diverse cast.

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hev139's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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ejb44's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

*Thank you NetGalley for the copy of this e-ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own. *

Where We Go From Here by Lucas Rocha is a Portuguese translated novel about the lives of three young men and how HIV has impacted their experiences as gay men. Ian just found out he is HIV positive. Victor finds out the person he’s interested in is HIV positive and Henrique has been diagnosed for 3 years. The intertwining stories of these men beautifully deals with what it means to love, grow, trust and educate whilst dealing with the diagnosis of HIV.

Brazilian author Rocha attempts to dissect modern misconceptions regarding HIV, especially those present in his home country, Brazil, which has been largely recognised as having one of the most effective responses to the HIV epidemic. Despite it being over 50 years since the largest outbreak in the West of AIDS and HIV, social perception of the virus has changed very little, with fears today surrounding hugging, kissing and starting a sexual relationship with someone HIV positive. The lack of accurate information regarding the topic has created a society largely unaware of how the virus is dealt with in the 21st century. This is where Rocha comes in to bridge the gap in the market.

While this book is fictional, I think because of the focus on HIV, there is a lot of long conversations which are purely there for the reader to learn from, as opposed to being beneficial to the development of the characters themselves. This ties in with fact that I think most of the characters are very two dimensional, and their whole existence in this book is to educate the readers about HIV. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing because I think it is indeed really educational, but it was hard to really like the characters when they barely have a life outside of their status.

One of the best things about this book, however, was the accurate range in emotions to the virus. While this book could have focused on “it’s no longer dangerous therefore you’re wrong for thinking bad of me”, it instead acknowledges the nuances of the topic as well as the fact that humans are a victim to the falsehoods we grow up hearing. No one person is portrayed as being more correct or superior because of their relationship with the virus, but the characters are portrayed on their own journey of confronting their perceptions and what they can do to change their mindset, which was really well done!

One last comment – despite the book being set in Brazil, I didn’t really feel like it had the Brazilian setting which I was hoping for. Due to the fact that this book is very much focused on the virus over the characters, other aspects of the book like writing, characters and setting take a slight step back. The only way I could describe this book is as if it’s a mix of fiction and nonfiction because the fictional aspect isn’t really emphasised too much.

Overall, a really good educational read and a massive achievement from the author, but I felt it could have improved on the ‘fictional’ side of the book.

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skelbea's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

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