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A review by ericadawson
What If It's Us by Becky Albertalli, Adam Silvera
funny
hopeful
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
My caveat is that I don't normally like/read romcoms, but I'm always willing to branch out when I can. Unfortunately, I didn't enjoy this book as much as I'd hoped.
In What If It's Us, we're taken through the month-long romantic journey of a post-office meetcute between Ben and Arthur. I liked Ben, I liked his comparatively chill personality, and I liked that he was chill for the most part. His aloofness being a result of just a nervous nature was nice.
I did not like Arthur. His sometimes annoyingly horny antics and internal thought processes had me cringing through a good deal of his PoV chapters. I can't really root for someone who's so socially unaware that he'll call his Puerto Rican boyfriend "so white" and then buy 36 condoms and brings all of them to his boyfriends house because he wants sex and just assumes his boyfriend is ready. Arthur's flaws aren't flaws that I'm against--but I hate their execution. He lacks self awareness and I'm not really sure he gained it by the end of the book, although the epilogue was nice.
He's also rude, and his frankly extreme jealous had me groaning and rolling my eyes (if your boyfriend and your boyfriend's ex both leave the summer school building because summer school is over for the day, then "why is he (ex-bf) here?" has a painfully obvious answer that is not "cheating"). In general, I found Arthur's voice/writing to be weaker than Ben's overall.
It's a shame, because at first I was really rooting for Ben and Arthur to get together. But what ended up happening was that both of them got more annoying and gave me more secondhand embarrassment after they got together. A Hamilton obsession on top of a JKR/Harry Potter obsession on top of an Obama-worship personality is a lot for two teens in one book. Considering that Hamilton is explicitly racist (why would you make slave owners Black unless you didn't like Black people?), Obama had some serious scandal with his drone strike program, and JKR is.....what she is now, this book was frankly painful to read.
The dialogue was nice at first, if only because I'm more used to the formality of high fantasy writing, but that also got old (mainly on Arthur's end) very quickly as well. Dylan's personality got old as well. I lost patience with the former very quickly, and I really lost sympathy when he basically threw a temper tantrum outside Ben's school over a wild assumption he made.
Can I say this book had potential? I'm not sure. Arthur annoyed me throughout. I liked Ben a decent amount. I really like Sam, but Sam and Dylan came across like adults or at least older teens than Ben and Arthur. Too much second-hand embarrassment for me to really settle in. Three and something stars.
In What If It's Us, we're taken through the month-long romantic journey of a post-office meetcute between Ben and Arthur. I liked Ben, I liked his comparatively chill personality, and I liked that he was chill for the most part. His aloofness being a result of just a nervous nature was nice.
I did not like Arthur. His sometimes annoyingly horny antics and internal thought processes had me cringing through a good deal of his PoV chapters. I can't really root for someone who's so socially unaware that he'll call his Puerto Rican boyfriend "so white" and then buy 36 condoms and brings all of them to his boyfriends house because he wants sex and just assumes his boyfriend is ready. Arthur's flaws aren't flaws that I'm against--but I hate their execution. He lacks self awareness and I'm not really sure he gained it by the end of the book, although the epilogue was nice.
He's also rude, and his frankly extreme jealous had me groaning and rolling my eyes (if your boyfriend and your boyfriend's ex both leave the summer school building because summer school is over for the day, then "why is he (ex-bf) here?" has a painfully obvious answer that is not "cheating"). In general, I found Arthur's voice/writing to be weaker than Ben's overall.
It's a shame, because at first I was really rooting for Ben and Arthur to get together. But what ended up happening was that both of them got more annoying and gave me more secondhand embarrassment after they got together. A Hamilton obsession on top of a JKR/Harry Potter obsession on top of an Obama-worship personality is a lot for two teens in one book. Considering that Hamilton is explicitly racist (why would you make slave owners Black unless you didn't like Black people?), Obama had some serious scandal with his drone strike program, and JKR is.....what she is now, this book was frankly painful to read.
The dialogue was nice at first, if only because I'm more used to the formality of high fantasy writing, but that also got old (mainly on Arthur's end) very quickly as well. Dylan's personality got old as well. I lost patience with the former very quickly, and I really lost sympathy when he basically threw a temper tantrum outside Ben's school over a wild assumption he made.
Can I say this book had potential? I'm not sure. Arthur annoyed me throughout. I liked Ben a decent amount. I really like Sam, but Sam and Dylan came across like adults or at least older teens than Ben and Arthur. Too much second-hand embarrassment for me to really settle in. Three and something stars.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Sexual content
Minor: Racism