Reviews with content warning for Racism - What If It's Us

This is a solid, wholesome, easy to read romcom. Arthur and Ben are both extremely likeable, relatable and realistic, and it’s easy to believe that they are two teenagers falling in love. They are slightly messy but both have good hearts and you are drawn into rooting for them. The side characters are equally well-written and adorable, and the dynamics with their friends and parents are endearing highlights. At times the writing felt like it was trying a bit too hard to sound like teenagers, and I wasn’t convinced by how content Arthur and Ben were with the ending (it very much felt like just an invitation for a sequel!). I don’t think the book was anything extraordinary or groundbreaking but I don’t think it intended to be. It was cute and I enjoyed it enough to pick up the sequel! And as a musical fan, I loved the musical references!

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rachelfayreads's review against another edition

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funny lighthearted relaxing medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

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caitlink's review against another edition

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emotional inspiring relaxing 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

2.75

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eimearz's review against another edition

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lighthearted slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

This book is the height of millennial gay YA, and I mean this as the greatest of insults.

The story comprises of two teenage boys, Ben and Arthur, who meet in a post office and try to find each other again. This is not a spoiler, it happens on the third page. The boys very quickly decide that meeting each other was Fate, despite the fact that their initial interaction comprised only of some minor banter. Both of them, specifically Arthur, try to track each other down. This ‘tracking down’ would be legally defined as ‘stalking.’ Arthur picks up an address label that Ben tore from a box, in the hope that it is his address.

They end up finding each other when Arthur places a public poster in a coffee shop, with a picture of Ben that he found by stalking Instagram for hours.

Despite the fact that this is an incredibly creepy thing to do, Ben is taken-in, and every single supporting character is incredibly enthusiastic in their support of this.

However, the book does not end there, because their relationship is not working, for two reasons. Firstly, as they had only chatted for about 5 minutes in a post office, they know absolutely nothing about each other when they reconnect. This leads to them being incredibly mismatched when they do meet up, with their arguments and dissatisfaction being equal in quantity to their happiness together. Secondly, as is the catalyst for much of this dissatisfaction,

one of the main characters is incredibly unlikable. Arthur, a rich white Yale-bound theater kid who is blowing off his internship at mommy’s law firm, is demonstrably a bad person. He gets insanely jealous

whenever Ben mentions his ex, to the point where he breaks up with him when he learns that Ben has been forced to... sit in the same classroom as his ex for a class.

What makes Arthur’s obvious flaws worse is the fact that the narrative excuses them

- Arthur accidentally being racist to Ben is treated with less importance than Ben being late to their dates, Arthur is the one upset by bigotry and Ben has to comfort him,

Arthur is the one who makes the problems and Ben is the one who has to cave.

The writing style is nothing special, if distinctly YA, and it is incredibly insistent on making cultural references the centerpiece. None of the characters are especially notable Potterheads, yet Harry Potter is mentioned at least 20 times (I counted) with a frequency which is both abnormal and taken as a given. A decent few chapters are dedicated to Arthur getting Ben into Hamilton, which is thus praised as God’s gift to musicals, with no thematic or narrative relevance for the length at which it is spoken about. Additionally, there are more miscellaneous complaints - the women in the story are all presented as mere aids to getting Ben and Arthur together, with the most egregious example being Samantha, who offers to track Arthur down for free despite only knowing Ben for about 20 minutes at that point, brushed off with a quick ‘this sounds cute, so I don’t mind doing unpaid labor for you.’ Bisexuality is mentioned a scant few times, and it is only ever treated as ‘half-straight.’ The description of minor characters of color is odd, often specifying their races where a white person’s wouldn’t be, from the phrasing of ‘a beautiful black girl comes over and kisses him’, to the bizarre assertion that a random person who Ben sees is Mexican, something which is presumably intuited by looking at the person and seeing if they can ‘clock’ him as anything.

Ultimately, this book is not worth your time. A story desperately trying to make this meager relationship work, convinced of its own quirkiness. If you’re looking for something good, avoid this book by all means. If you’re looking for something to hate-read, godspeed.

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