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m_hates_reading's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
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? It's complicated
4.0
4/5 Absolutely heartbreaking.
A queer, first-love romance, but set in 1989 New York and based in the AIDS crisis - it’s one of the most moving books I’ve read. It’s been sat on my bookshelf since I originally came out in 2020, and I never bothered to read it until now. Im actually glad I didn’t read it when I first got it, bc I don’t think I would have been able to appreciate the imagery and symbolism as well.
A queer, first-love romance, but set in 1989 New York and based in the AIDS crisis - it’s one of the most moving books I’ve read. It’s been sat on my bookshelf since I originally came out in 2020, and I never bothered to read it until now. Im actually glad I didn’t read it when I first got it, bc I don’t think I would have been able to appreciate the imagery and symbolism as well.
The tri-perspective approach really works well- nobody’s the main character, it’s about how what happens effects all of them, the entire community.
The reason it’s not a five star read, for me, was because I felt the writing lacked balance. The first half of the book was very cute and bubbly (or as cute and bubbly as it gets when your book is a queer romance set in 1989 New York) and all the very deeply emotional and moving scenes kind of happened together. It’s hard to explain, and I don’t want to criticise it too harshly because it is an incredibly beautiful story that the author has very obviously put their entire heart and soul into, but it felt like some passages were missing the spark that made the rest of it so great.
Not my usual thing, but I’m glad I read it, and I’m glad it exists because I know just how meaningful it is and will be to so many people.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Bullying, Death, Emotional abuse, Grief, Hate crime, Homophobia, and Terminal illness
Moderate: Death of parent, Gun violence, Mass/school shootings, Outing, Police brutality, Racism, Religious bigotry, Sexual content, and Xenophobia
Minor: Alcoholism
tahsintries's review against another edition
- Strong character development? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Homophobia, Chronic illness, and Terminal illness
Moderate: Bullying, Death, Excrement, Hate crime, and Violence
Minor: Racism and Alcoholism
lexa's review against another edition
emotional
inspiring
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
5.0
A beautiful, breathtaking story of love in all forms. The love of friends, first love, romantic love, family love, community love, self love, and of course love of Madonna. But it is also so much more. It is a lesson in how far we've come in some ways and how far we still have to go in others. From the Author's Note: "This book is an ode to the heroes and heroines of the AIDS movement, activists who saved lives".
Content Warnings
Graphic: Bullying, Chronic illness, Death of parent, Death, and Homophobia
Moderate: Fatphobia, Racism, Grief, and Excrement
Minor: Blood, Medical trauma, Sexual content, Vomit, and Alcoholism
achingallover's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
I cried a lot. I liked the note cards, especially the one on high school.
I however didn't totally get why Judy was so angry with Art. I initially thought it was because she thought Reza and Art had been cheating on her together, and was a miscommunication. But Art hadn't acted on his feelings after Reza shut him down before his first date with Judy, so like, I really don't get that he'd done anything wrong? I understand the upset that Reza had used her in a way, but I don't see what Art had done that was so awful that she wouldn't speak to him for 6 months. Art was an interesting character, but could have done with some character development, and I'm not sure his POV added much given that he didn't seem to learn much throughout the book. I also didn't like how much pressure he put on Reza about sex, even whilst saying he wouldn't pressure him.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Bullying, Cancer, Chronic illness, Death, Death of parent, Fatphobia, Grief, Hate crime, Homophobia, Medical content, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Violence, and Vomit
Minor: Alcoholism and Religious bigotry
booksthatburn's review against another edition
dark
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
LIKE A LOVE STORY is about three teens trying to hang on to friendship and find love during the AIDS crisis, finding space for joy when the world wants so much for them to die. It's a messy story about imperfect people living through an especially terrible time to be gay*.
*I said "gay" not "queer" because the book seems to only know about gay men, more on that later.
I kept feeling jostled, uncomfortable when reading this, but mostly in a good way. The three MCs have very different perspectives, different assumptions about each other. One MC is fat and unabashedly loves food but deals with a lot of fatphobia and insecurity about how other people see her. I wish she'd had moments of food joy which weren't tainted by someone judging her in the moment, or her worrying about what other people were thinking. The gay and out MC deals with homophobia towards his gay identity and with the specter of what people around him think AIDS could mean, as well as what it actually means for his older gay friends who are dying of it. The gay and closeted MC (who is Persian) deals with racism and microaggressions about his background, and has internalized homophobia which means he’s both being hurt by other people’s homophobic reactions to the idea of gayness and turning that around into homophobic reactions towards other people because he doesn’t know what else to do. It makes for an emotionally complex but also sometimes exhausting read, as the white characters are racist, the straight characters are homophobic, and the thin characters are fatphobic. It’s set up to have no one be perfect, but it also means that early on there aren’t many emotional respites from the bigotry, though this did improve as the narrative progressed.
The AIDS crisis and the gay men dying from AIDS are a prominent feature of the story, along with homophobic reactions to AIDS and the idea of it. The closeted MC is assumed to be straight when he’s actually gay, and no one considers for even a second the possibility that he could be bi (as far as I'm aware, "bi" was a label in use during the late eighties/early nineties but "pan" wasn't yet), anything that would make it feel like he has choices beyond “be in the closet and date the girl” or “be out and date the guy”. I don’t mean that he had to actually be bi or pan, just that no characters even consider that as a possibility. The idea that he could like both of the other MCs doesn’t occur to anyone, and it means his desire for other people is treated as the coveted object in a zero-sum game. I know this is set before the split attraction model was codified, but still, it’s so frustrating to see him do everything but scream “I’m homosexual and biromantic” and get rejected for so long for not being heterosexual (by the girl) and for not being strictly homoromantic (by the guy). My frustrations with the book were mostly about what wasn't quite in it but was a breath away, like the stark absence of queer women (who were also dying of AIDS in real life). There were two mentions of queer women in the entire book and neither of them seemed to acknowledge that AIDS affected them too. This didn't need to be everything, but since a lot of the narration made room for PSAs seemingly designed to make sure that it conveys a lot of the history of this very real epidemic which was ignored and mocked at the time, it stings to feel bi/pan erasure when reading. It also struggled in its handling of the fat character. She's... body-neutral, I guess? Her fatness seemed to exist mostly to have her have a "flaw" that isn't a flaw, just like being gay or being Iranian aren't flaws, but they can draw the ire of bigots when in homophobic and xenophobic settings.
I liked the second half better, maybe I just got used to the characters or maybe they'd gotten the frustrating love triangle stuff handled enough to let the story breathe a little more, since I'm not a huge fan of love triangles, especially ones built on miscommunications and lies. I cared a lot more about the way the friendships bend and whether or not they break. The epilogue was sad and jarring, I'm glad to know how the characters end up, but it was an appropriately bittersweet way to end this sad and hopeful story about people just trying to live and love.
*I said "gay" not "queer" because the book seems to only know about gay men, more on that later.
I kept feeling jostled, uncomfortable when reading this, but mostly in a good way. The three MCs have very different perspectives, different assumptions about each other. One MC is fat and unabashedly loves food but deals with a lot of fatphobia and insecurity about how other people see her. I wish she'd had moments of food joy which weren't tainted by someone judging her in the moment, or her worrying about what other people were thinking. The gay and out MC deals with homophobia towards his gay identity and with the specter of what people around him think AIDS could mean, as well as what it actually means for his older gay friends who are dying of it. The gay and closeted MC (who is Persian) deals with racism and microaggressions about his background, and has internalized homophobia which means he’s both being hurt by other people’s homophobic reactions to the idea of gayness and turning that around into homophobic reactions towards other people because he doesn’t know what else to do. It makes for an emotionally complex but also sometimes exhausting read, as the white characters are racist, the straight characters are homophobic, and the thin characters are fatphobic. It’s set up to have no one be perfect, but it also means that early on there aren’t many emotional respites from the bigotry, though this did improve as the narrative progressed.
The AIDS crisis and the gay men dying from AIDS are a prominent feature of the story, along with homophobic reactions to AIDS and the idea of it. The closeted MC is assumed to be straight when he’s actually gay, and no one considers for even a second the possibility that he could be bi (as far as I'm aware, "bi" was a label in use during the late eighties/early nineties but "pan" wasn't yet), anything that would make it feel like he has choices beyond “be in the closet and date the girl” or “be out and date the guy”. I don’t mean that he had to actually be bi or pan, just that no characters even consider that as a possibility. The idea that he could like both of the other MCs doesn’t occur to anyone, and it means his desire for other people is treated as the coveted object in a zero-sum game. I know this is set before the split attraction model was codified, but still, it’s so frustrating to see him do everything but scream “I’m homosexual and biromantic” and get rejected for so long for not being heterosexual (by the girl) and for not being strictly homoromantic (by the guy). My frustrations with the book were mostly about what wasn't quite in it but was a breath away, like the stark absence of queer women (who were also dying of AIDS in real life). There were two mentions of queer women in the entire book and neither of them seemed to acknowledge that AIDS affected them too. This didn't need to be everything, but since a lot of the narration made room for PSAs seemingly designed to make sure that it conveys a lot of the history of this very real epidemic which was ignored and mocked at the time, it stings to feel bi/pan erasure when reading. It also struggled in its handling of the fat character. She's... body-neutral, I guess? Her fatness seemed to exist mostly to have her have a "flaw" that isn't a flaw, just like being gay or being Iranian aren't flaws, but they can draw the ire of bigots when in homophobic and xenophobic settings.
I liked the second half better, maybe I just got used to the characters or maybe they'd gotten the frustrating love triangle stuff handled enough to let the story breathe a little more, since I'm not a huge fan of love triangles, especially ones built on miscommunications and lies. I cared a lot more about the way the friendships bend and whether or not they break. The epilogue was sad and jarring, I'm glad to know how the characters end up, but it was an appropriately bittersweet way to end this sad and hopeful story about people just trying to live and love.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Homophobia, and Islamophobia
Moderate: Alcoholism, Blood, Fatphobia, Racism, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, and Vomit
CW for fatphobia, classism, racism, islamophobia, homophobia, homophobic slurs, suicidal thoughts, alcoholism, vomit, blood, self harm, violence, suicide, major character death, death. TW for frequent discussion of AIDS, references to the Iranian revolution, references to Pulse Nightclub (epilogue).alenezela99's review against another edition
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
This is everything thing to me, I love every about it🥺🥺
Content Warnings
Moderate: Alcoholism, Chronic illness, Death, Bullying, Death of parent, Grief, and Homophobia
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