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A review by streetwrites
What If It's Us by Adam Silvera, Becky Albertalli
5.0
I applied for, and received, a digital ARC for this book on Edelweiss, and am providing my honest, unbiased review of the book below.
UGGGGGGH. And I mean, it’s the very best kind of “UGGGGGH” ever.
Have you ever just really loved two things...like to the point where you just KNOW that if those two things somehow fused, it would just be an overwhelming rush of awesome amazingness coming from that fusion?
Well that’s Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera for me. I read their debut novels at around the same time, and fell in love with the stories they were telling.
And now, this one has come along and has just given me ALL the feels. I am trying very hard to stick to my strict no-spoiler review rules, but it’s so very hard to describe and talk about this book without giving stuff away.
REALNESS.
That’s what this book is. I think I can say that without spoiling. It’s just absolutely, unapologetically REAL. It’s a true roller-coaster ride about the sudden, quickly developing romance between Arthur and Ben after a chance encounter at a post office in New York City.
What follows that encounter is nothing short of real life. It’s messy. It’s all over the place. It’s miscommunications and misunderstandings. It’s the truth, compiled into book form, and it reaches of level of authenticity that is sometimes hard to capture in a contemporary novel about teenagers that has been written by an adult who may or may not be out of touch with that period of existence.
Adam and Becky are not those adults. They capture the teenage zeitgeist so very well, that you’ll almost think two teenager ghost-wrote this book.
If you want a cushy tale of love at first sight and constant, swoon-worthy scenes of affection, this is not the book for you. There IS that here, but the authors have taken diligent care to present their readers with authenticity and the reality that, sometimes, things don’t always transpire in that perfect, Polaroid way.
In fact, there are so many nuanced references to the fact that Arthur and Ben’s love story isn’t SUPPOSED to confirm to these idyllic notions of love we always seem to expect in fiction. The oft-hinted obsession a certain character has with making her Instagram feed look more larger-than-life than her own life really is is just one example of that.
In addition to being a great contemporary romance entry, this book also brings some great topics up for discussion, including homophobia (with a very intense scene in which Arthur and Ben are publicly confronted by someone who does not approve of their love) and racism (an equally tense scene between the two protagonists, in which one confronts the other about what the latter thought was a harmless comment). The novel presents these issues in a real, mostly non-preachy way, so that was definitely great to see in a contemporary read.
At the end of the day, What If It’s Us is a fantastically written book with a masterfully woven plot that has a fantastic blend of the romance we all wish we could find, and the REAL downturns our relationships—both platonic and romantic—can sometimes take.
It’s also a great study if the redemptive nature of friendship. And even in exploring that concept, the authors have kept things real. It’s easy to see these are two authors who have no interest in lying to teenagers about the way life sometimes goes. Some readers might find the level of truth in this book off-putting, saying they’d rather read fantasy or something speculative to escape the harsh realities of life and love on this earth.
But whatever the case, Arthur and Ben are an excellent case study of what it means to fall in love with someone while simultaneously coming to the realization that no one—and no relationship—is perfect.
My literal only beef with this novel, which nearly caused me to rate it 4 Stars, was that there is a section in which one of the characters is OBNOXIOUSLY unfair to the other, in a toxic, unhealthy way. But that character redeems himself in the end after a sobering realization of his behavior, so that elevated my rating back up to a 5—because it was just perfect!
Bravo to Adam and Becky on this awesome work, and I will be looking forward to their next collaboration!
UGGGGGGH. And I mean, it’s the very best kind of “UGGGGGH” ever.
Have you ever just really loved two things...like to the point where you just KNOW that if those two things somehow fused, it would just be an overwhelming rush of awesome amazingness coming from that fusion?
Well that’s Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera for me. I read their debut novels at around the same time, and fell in love with the stories they were telling.
And now, this one has come along and has just given me ALL the feels. I am trying very hard to stick to my strict no-spoiler review rules, but it’s so very hard to describe and talk about this book without giving stuff away.
REALNESS.
That’s what this book is. I think I can say that without spoiling. It’s just absolutely, unapologetically REAL. It’s a true roller-coaster ride about the sudden, quickly developing romance between Arthur and Ben after a chance encounter at a post office in New York City.
What follows that encounter is nothing short of real life. It’s messy. It’s all over the place. It’s miscommunications and misunderstandings. It’s the truth, compiled into book form, and it reaches of level of authenticity that is sometimes hard to capture in a contemporary novel about teenagers that has been written by an adult who may or may not be out of touch with that period of existence.
Adam and Becky are not those adults. They capture the teenage zeitgeist so very well, that you’ll almost think two teenager ghost-wrote this book.
If you want a cushy tale of love at first sight and constant, swoon-worthy scenes of affection, this is not the book for you. There IS that here, but the authors have taken diligent care to present their readers with authenticity and the reality that, sometimes, things don’t always transpire in that perfect, Polaroid way.
In fact, there are so many nuanced references to the fact that Arthur and Ben’s love story isn’t SUPPOSED to confirm to these idyllic notions of love we always seem to expect in fiction. The oft-hinted obsession a certain character has with making her Instagram feed look more larger-than-life than her own life really is is just one example of that.
In addition to being a great contemporary romance entry, this book also brings some great topics up for discussion, including homophobia (with a very intense scene in which Arthur and Ben are publicly confronted by someone who does not approve of their love) and racism (an equally tense scene between the two protagonists, in which one confronts the other about what the latter thought was a harmless comment). The novel presents these issues in a real, mostly non-preachy way, so that was definitely great to see in a contemporary read.
At the end of the day, What If It’s Us is a fantastically written book with a masterfully woven plot that has a fantastic blend of the romance we all wish we could find, and the REAL downturns our relationships—both platonic and romantic—can sometimes take.
It’s also a great study if the redemptive nature of friendship. And even in exploring that concept, the authors have kept things real. It’s easy to see these are two authors who have no interest in lying to teenagers about the way life sometimes goes. Some readers might find the level of truth in this book off-putting, saying they’d rather read fantasy or something speculative to escape the harsh realities of life and love on this earth.
But whatever the case, Arthur and Ben are an excellent case study of what it means to fall in love with someone while simultaneously coming to the realization that no one—and no relationship—is perfect.
My literal only beef with this novel, which nearly caused me to rate it 4 Stars, was that there is a section in which one of the characters is OBNOXIOUSLY unfair to the other, in a toxic, unhealthy way. But that character redeems himself in the end after a sobering realization of his behavior, so that elevated my rating back up to a 5—because it was just perfect!
Bravo to Adam and Becky on this awesome work, and I will be looking forward to their next collaboration!