A review by simplythegirl
Always the Almost by Edward Underhill

emotional lighthearted medium-paced

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

2.75

So I wanted to like this book but I think it fails where a lot of other queer books fail (especially  when written by queer peoppe who are not minorities)in its representation  of people of color. Mile's the main character and his boyfriend  Eric is the flat character who seemingly only exists to support Miles in the story. He loves to draw and cares about his sister but his personality is just not really developed. Besides Eric and his family the only other presumanly hispanic character in the book is the school janitor José. José  of course is not developed or even shown just mentioned and definitely  falls into the Hispanic are cleaners stereotype. A queer Hispanic this definitely  annoyed me and I almost stopped reading. The author acknowledges systematic racism through  the lack of people of color at the piano competitions but it feels weird that they acknowledge  it but still have a mainly white cast. I Also overall I did not like Miles that much the only times I really enjoyed him were his cute moments with Eric and his struggling with people's perception due to him being transgender. I do feel that like others have stated

The cheating was a real  put off I feel like Rachel and Paige got shafted. Their relationship should've  had a little more focus especially after the cheating instead it just ends and the relationship the author set us up to love is just gone. Meanwhile it feels like Eric forgives Miles super quickly. Eric deserves so much better. Miles was especially  annoying to me in how selfish he is. His friends are struggling in their relationship  together and he doesn't  even help them? Paige and Rachel consistently  have been there for him(albeit sometimes overstepping and being more unintentionally rude than anything at times) but when they start having troubles in their relationship(when Rachel tells Miles they had trouble trying to do it and it made their relationship weird)  Miles can't  even say anything? He's  just in shock not even an "I'm  sorry that happened" a "I don't  know what to say" or some form of comfort. He just gets incredulous which comes off as belittling to me (especially  wjen its clear Miles isn't  ace) then just gets uncomfortable  and bails on them.