A review by stevia333k
Nick and Charlie by Alice Oseman

emotional tense
  • Loveable characters? Yes

3.5

i got triggered.

this feels like a 4 star book, but personally i have to make it closer to the half way mark than that. i think the intended audience is teenagers, but i'm not sure due the choice of some adjectives being written in the 1st person that might've sounded better in the 3rd person. Hallelujah i've survived long enough & i'm growing.

It was a decent story & I appreciated the info explaining the british school system at the back of the book because holy shit that's been tripping me up for a while. they're a cute couple with strong relationship foundations.

that being said i got triggered with at the very least the photography plotline? i read heartstopper & then i read this book so i'm pretty sure i missed a lot because i don't remember the medical conditions.

personally, i would've preferred them to not have sex, but this book ain't alone in that distaste. like this book explicitly say it takes relationship scripts from the straights TM & amatonormativity. (tao & his girlfriend, along with the discussion of soulmates) seriously, the contrast of them being kids whose communication skills sucked about how to do long distance with ... look this book ain't alone in the problem & i was an outlier as a kid in being hostile to dating because i didn't think kids should have sex so. however, apparently sex is a thing that's done & IDK enough about sexology to not cringe about the common experience & I also don't trust a lot of sexology because of genital reductionism.

also the use of words like boyish & teenagers (as opposed to say kids our age)... the writing is written in the 1st person, like with the choice of boyish, what's that in comparison to? as someone in my late 20's it creeped me out, like i'm almost the age of the author, this needed better editing.

i read this book for a bookclub & this was considered positive lgbt+ representation, but obviously i got triggered. 

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