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A review by oliver_bug
We Contain Multitudes by Sarah Henstra
dark
emotional
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.0
Okay so first I'm going to give a spoiler-free review of the book then ill get into the spoilers and how I felt about the book. HUGE TW FOR SEVERAL THEMES IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE REVIEW.
I would like to preface this review by saying that I am LGBT and Autistic.
The book jumps right into the plot of Jo (Jonothan Hopkirk, 15) and Kurl (Adam Kurlanski, 18) being pen pals for a school assignment. I saw someone else on here say that Jo writes very pretentiously for a 15-year-old but honestly I kind of love it, He's trying to impress Kurl and he uses big words and old references to do so. Throughout the book, he 'lets loose' with his writing a bit. However, Kurl does the opposite, as the book progresses he gets better at describing things and knows what words to use to convey exactly what he is thinking. Kurl is a big bad football player who gets into fights and mysteriously left the football team, while Jo is a small bullied openly gay kid. They are opposites, but I think that's beautiful, opposites attract and all that. The romance happens a little fast but all can be forgiven by how cute and kind of relatable it is. Jo seems very very autistic to me, he has several autistic traits. Honestly, I was really loving seeing myself in a character, It gave me some sort of hope for my own love life. This book kind of made me want a pen pal. I think the premise is very nice as well, it's a cute little love story we were all rooting for.
This review makes it sound like I love this book and that I should have given it more stars. No.
(I am trying my best to keep this in chronological order but some of it may be a little messed up)
SPOILERS TW
SPOILERS TW
SPOILERS TW
This is easily the worst book I have ever read. They had me in the first half not gonna lie. Again the premise was nice but oh my god was the execution terrible. The first half was a cute little love story and honestly, the author could have stopped it there, no sexual encounters were needed, it was a nice love story. However, the first thing that turned me off from this book was that the first sexual encounter in the book is Kurl sexually assaulting Jo while drunk. Then Jo blamed himself, said that he should have done more to stop it, that it's his fault that Kurl did that because he didn't say no to the drunk man, he was being 'selfish' by letting him continue. First of all, why did they need to have any sexual encounters at all, I understand that teenagers have sexual feelings, but again it's almost pornographic the amount of detail that goes into all of the sex scenes. The second part that made me wish I couldn't read was in the first full sex scene, there are three entire paragraphs of armpit fetish. WHAT THE HELL. Kurl describes fondling and shoving his face into Jo's armpit and inhaling his scent or whatever, he even uses some of the most ridiculous words to describe his BO. Soon after their first sexual encounter, Kurl accidentally outs himself and Jo to Jo's family, and he is not really sorry about it. This is directly after correcting Jo's sister on the smell of Jo's feet. According to Kurl, Jo's feet smell like hazelnuts (I will never enjoy hazelnut in my coffee again). Later when Jo is over at Kurls house, they are getting heated and Kurl is heasitent. This is when he reveals that his uncle (who married Kurls mom after his dad died) beats him and this is why he quit the football team (his coach started getting suspicious). After this there is a letter where Kurl tried to hide his wounds from Jo, Jo noticed obviously, and told him to get help, Kurl did not want help and got mad and tried to hit Jo. Then after Jo kicked him out he felt bad and started sniffing the socks that Kurl left there??? Jo, Kurl, Jo's sister (Shayna), and Shayna's friend (Bron), were all in a group together and are the main focus of the second half of the book. Shayna is really struggling and her grades are dropping, she's skipping school, and she's hanging out with some bad people (her dead mom's drug dealer, who she just thought was her mom's friend). When Kurl reveals that he is being abused to Shayna and Bron, they feel bad for him at first then start calling him selfish and a terrible person for sharing such big news while Shayna is right there and needs help. Shayna at one point tries to kill herself by standing in front of a moving train but Kurl talks her out of it. At a party after a lot of drama goes down at Jo's house after he got beaten at school, he walks in on Kurl and Shayna having sex. Which in itself is terrible but then Jo goes off on a rampage and gets very drunk and crushes up a bunch of high-strength pain medication, then 'flirts' with his bully and gets the absolute snot beat out of him. There's a bunch more that happens in the book but is not really that interesting or nice. In the end, THEY DONT EVEN END UP TOGETHER, they break up and they don't quite get back together. Kurl goes over to Jo's house and basically forces himself on him and Jo just kind of forgives him? and they end up going to some summer program together. but it's never really said that they get back together. In the last chapter Jo says that he wants Kurl to go with him to the summer program because everyone has either left him or lied to him as if Kurl has not been doing that the entire book??
All in all this book was pretty awful. The only saving grace was the first half of the book. It would be a .5-star review otherwise. I wish I could not read. I agree with some of the other people on here saying that this book is not for the LGBT community and they are right. This book is written by and for straight women who want to fetishize MLM relationships. There are some MLM books written by women that I have read that were better than this. Actually, I've read better word problems in math class. Please save your eyes from this terrible book. The only reason I finished it was because I kept telling myself "it can't get worse" and then it did.
I would like to preface this review by saying that I am LGBT and Autistic.
The book jumps right into the plot of Jo (Jonothan Hopkirk, 15) and Kurl (Adam Kurlanski, 18) being pen pals for a school assignment. I saw someone else on here say that Jo writes very pretentiously for a 15-year-old but honestly I kind of love it, He's trying to impress Kurl and he uses big words and old references to do so. Throughout the book, he 'lets loose' with his writing a bit. However, Kurl does the opposite, as the book progresses he gets better at describing things and knows what words to use to convey exactly what he is thinking. Kurl is a big bad football player who gets into fights and mysteriously left the football team, while Jo is a small bullied openly gay kid. They are opposites, but I think that's beautiful, opposites attract and all that. The romance happens a little fast but all can be forgiven by how cute and kind of relatable it is. Jo seems very very autistic to me, he has several autistic traits. Honestly, I was really loving seeing myself in a character, It gave me some sort of hope for my own love life. This book kind of made me want a pen pal. I think the premise is very nice as well, it's a cute little love story we were all rooting for.
This review makes it sound like I love this book and that I should have given it more stars. No.
(I am trying my best to keep this in chronological order but some of it may be a little messed up)
SPOILERS TW
SPOILERS TW
SPOILERS TW
This is easily the worst book I have ever read. They had me in the first half not gonna lie. Again the premise was nice but oh my god was the execution terrible. The first half was a cute little love story and honestly, the author could have stopped it there, no sexual encounters were needed, it was a nice love story. However, the first thing that turned me off from this book was that the first sexual encounter in the book is Kurl sexually assaulting Jo while drunk. Then Jo blamed himself, said that he should have done more to stop it, that it's his fault that Kurl did that because he didn't say no to the drunk man, he was being 'selfish' by letting him continue. First of all, why did they need to have any sexual encounters at all, I understand that teenagers have sexual feelings, but again it's almost pornographic the amount of detail that goes into all of the sex scenes. The second part that made me wish I couldn't read was in the first full sex scene, there are three entire paragraphs of armpit fetish. WHAT THE HELL. Kurl describes fondling and shoving his face into Jo's armpit and inhaling his scent or whatever, he even uses some of the most ridiculous words to describe his BO. Soon after their first sexual encounter, Kurl accidentally outs himself and Jo to Jo's family, and he is not really sorry about it. This is directly after correcting Jo's sister on the smell of Jo's feet. According to Kurl, Jo's feet smell like hazelnuts (I will never enjoy hazelnut in my coffee again). Later when Jo is over at Kurls house, they are getting heated and Kurl is heasitent. This is when he reveals that his uncle (who married Kurls mom after his dad died) beats him and this is why he quit the football team (his coach started getting suspicious). After this there is a letter where Kurl tried to hide his wounds from Jo, Jo noticed obviously, and told him to get help, Kurl did not want help and got mad and tried to hit Jo. Then after Jo kicked him out he felt bad and started sniffing the socks that Kurl left there??? Jo, Kurl, Jo's sister (Shayna), and Shayna's friend (Bron), were all in a group together and are the main focus of the second half of the book. Shayna is really struggling and her grades are dropping, she's skipping school, and she's hanging out with some bad people (her dead mom's drug dealer, who she just thought was her mom's friend). When Kurl reveals that he is being abused to Shayna and Bron, they feel bad for him at first then start calling him selfish and a terrible person for sharing such big news while Shayna is right there and needs help. Shayna at one point tries to kill herself by standing in front of a moving train but Kurl talks her out of it. At a party after a lot of drama goes down at Jo's house after he got beaten at school, he walks in on Kurl and Shayna having sex. Which in itself is terrible but then Jo goes off on a rampage and gets very drunk and crushes up a bunch of high-strength pain medication, then 'flirts' with his bully and gets the absolute snot beat out of him. There's a bunch more that happens in the book but is not really that interesting or nice. In the end, THEY DONT EVEN END UP TOGETHER, they break up and they don't quite get back together. Kurl goes over to Jo's house and basically forces himself on him and Jo just kind of forgives him? and they end up going to some summer program together. but it's never really said that they get back together. In the last chapter Jo says that he wants Kurl to go with him to the summer program because everyone has either left him or lied to him as if Kurl has not been doing that the entire book??
All in all this book was pretty awful. The only saving grace was the first half of the book. It would be a .5-star review otherwise. I wish I could not read. I agree with some of the other people on here saying that this book is not for the LGBT community and they are right. This book is written by and for straight women who want to fetishize MLM relationships. There are some MLM books written by women that I have read that were better than this. Actually, I've read better word problems in math class. Please save your eyes from this terrible book. The only reason I finished it was because I kept telling myself "it can't get worse" and then it did.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Bullying, Child abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, and Sexual content
Moderate: War