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A review by raguel
Autoboyography by Christina Lauren
2.0
This was an impactful and necessary YA novel, and I think it does a nice job of highlighting the difficulties of growing up gay and religious, and the difficulty of trying to reconcile those things. This book did not oversimplify or make easy the task of coming to terms with your sexuality and rejecting your religion. Instead, it emphasizes the agony of feeling like you have to leave everything and everyone you love behind in order to be your true self. This is not an easy thing for anyone to go through, but especially not a teen. I hope that teens who are struggling with identity or religion can find some solace in this book, and can see a part of themselves in the characters.
What I liked:
Tanner critiques the Mormon religion without outright hating on it.
The romance was pretty cute.
A Bi character! Who self-identifies as Bi! (Not perfect representation, but still. I’m always happy to see that label explicitly used)
Decent character development for the main characters, especially Sebastian (everyone else stayed the same).
With that said, Let’s move on to what I didn’t like:
The relationship felt a bit insta-lovey, but I give it a pass because it’s the whole “overwhelmed by your first serious high school crush” type of thing.
I don’t really buy these uber-liberal, overly supportive parents uprooting their life and their happy and out child to go live somewhere where he has to go back in the closet for some of his most formative years. And then they get upset that he finds a boy he likes an wants to date, because the boy is Mormon and they hate the LDS church. But they live in Provo, so what is this poor kid supposed to do? His parents are doing all of this for his own safety, but they’re the ones that put him in these dangerous circumstances in the first place. Idk.
“Auddy” is a dumb nickname and she wasn’t a fully fleshed out character.
What I liked:
Tanner critiques the Mormon religion without outright hating on it.
The romance was pretty cute.
A Bi character! Who self-identifies as Bi! (Not perfect representation, but still. I’m always happy to see that label explicitly used)
Decent character development for the main characters, especially Sebastian (everyone else stayed the same).
With that said, Let’s move on to what I didn’t like:
The relationship felt a bit insta-lovey, but I give it a pass because it’s the whole “overwhelmed by your first serious high school crush” type of thing.
I don’t really buy these uber-liberal, overly supportive parents uprooting their life and their happy and out child to go live somewhere where he has to go back in the closet for some of his most formative years. And then they get upset that he finds a boy he likes an wants to date, because the boy is Mormon and they hate the LDS church. But they live in Provo, so what is this poor kid supposed to do? His parents are doing all of this for his own safety, but they’re the ones that put him in these dangerous circumstances in the first place. Idk.
“Auddy” is a dumb nickname and she wasn’t a fully fleshed out character.