Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by kmccloud124
Autoboyography by Christina Lauren
1.0
let’s start with a disclaimer: i completely understand that so many people love this book and some probably feel seen and represented by this book, and that is valid!! i personally did not like it and felt uncomfortable for many reasons that i will get into, but if you will feel offended by my opinion please don’t read this review! i’m in the minority here by not liking this book but we can all have different opinions
i really wanted to love this. i was so excited because of the bisexual representation and because literally everyone seemed to love it. but i just didn’t like it. and that’s okay!
ty, now onto the review. sorry in advance if i forgot to hide any spoilers.
content warnings: homophobia/biphobia, especially internalized homophobia b/c of religion, f-slur
let’s start with the pros:
i think this book handled the topic of religion and sexuality (together) very well! i’m not mormon so i can’t speak on how accurate any of it was, but i genuinely loved the overall message of “any God who truly loves you wouldn’t judge you for who you love”
this book is a weird mix of cute romance with heavy emotional development in the background, which is why i think so many people love it.
that’s it. that’s literally all i can think of.
the cons:
the bisexuality representation should be a pro, but i felt so uncomfortable with it for the majority of the book. i’m bisexual and i know at least one of the authors is bisexual and i still can’t wrap my head around this:
the MC’s love interest repeatedly refuses to believe that tanner, his boyfriend, is bisexual despite his statements otherwise. he constantly refers to tanner as “liking guys” instead of calling him bisexual. i guess it’s better that outright calling him gay every time, but not cool, and it never gets resolved!!! tanner corrects him once but then seb never changes his wording and it’s never brought up again. it really irks me that this book didn’t do a good job of addressing stereotypes that bi people face all the time and this is one of the biggest ones!! you’re still bisexual if you are in a heterosexual relationship and you’re still bisexual if you’re in a homosexual relationship, and guess what, you’re still bisexual no matter your partners gender if you identify as bisexual!!! so many side characters are like “oh so ur into guys” and tanner’s like “yeah i’m bi” but never talks about what it’s like for him being bi and dealing with that stereotype all the time! it would be the perfect time for him to say “yeah i’m attracted to both guys and girls because i’m bisexual, that doesn’t change because i’m dating a guy”
i guess i was just hopeful that there would be good bi rep in this book because an author is bi, but there was so much telling “i’m bi” and not showing what tanner’s experience being bi is like, and i was disappointed. anyway, onto other things i didn’t like:
the parents: not awful but i don’t understand how they could be like “yeah we love you and we support you but let’s move to fucking utah because of my career where you’ll be forced to go back into the closet for your own safety even though we want nothing but the best for you” bullshit.
the “friends”: so many fucking namedrops throughout this book and i don’t know who anybody is other than autumn even though they’re supposedly tanner’s friends. dad goes “don’t forget about manny and eric” and i didn’t even know who eric was. did he actually exist in this book other than characters saying his name?
don’t even get me started on tanner and autumn. first of all, she’s in love with him for the entire book and he KNOWS that but they never talk about it and he’s constantly flirty with her and really affectionate BUT THEN fun. what exactly did this do to the plot??? it barely even caused drama between the characters. idk i have no words.
the plot. or should i say lack of plot? there was no plot. literally no plot. only insta love and terrible annoying drama that never got resolved and just magically disappeared. things are mentioned once and then never seen again. there was a big deal with prom and then suddenly the characters have graduated and gone to college but prom never happened??
the ending. it’s so sudden and there is no lead up to the last chapter (which is randomly in sebastian’s POV?) and the epilogue is just there to give us a happy ending and tell us the seb has changed and is accepting of his sexuality now, but it doesn’t show us!!! just tells us!!!!
another random point: i haven’t seen anybody else mention anything about this but i think it’s important - it really bothered me at times that a huge chunk of tanner’s internal monologue was thinking about sex. don’t get me wrong, it’s definitely not a bad thing that a bisexual teenage boy thinks about having sex with a boy he is attracted to, and i think that is an important thing to have in YA novels, but i don’t think it was discussed in the right way. i appreciated the “talks” given to tanner by his parents, but i was uncomfortable because it felt very much like the “older woman trying to write teenage male characters” by having him think about sex all the time instead of trying to incorporate a message about how it’s healthy to be a teenager and think about sex, to want sex, if that makes sense. and idk maybe the whole “i want to have sex but my religion is against it and i’m conflicted” could have happened but it didn’t, what a shocker, and instead it was just “oh i can’t stop thinking about him i wonder if he’s ever had sex” because the MC was a teenage boy
i really wanted to love this. i was so excited because of the bisexual representation and because literally everyone seemed to love it. but i just didn’t like it. and that’s okay!
ty, now onto the review. sorry in advance if i forgot to hide any spoilers.
content warnings: homophobia/biphobia, especially internalized homophobia b/c of religion, f-slur
let’s start with the pros:
i think this book handled the topic of religion and sexuality (together) very well! i’m not mormon so i can’t speak on how accurate any of it was, but i genuinely loved the overall message of “any God who truly loves you wouldn’t judge you for who you love”
this book is a weird mix of cute romance with heavy emotional development in the background, which is why i think so many people love it.
that’s it. that’s literally all i can think of.
the cons:
the bisexuality representation should be a pro, but i felt so uncomfortable with it for the majority of the book. i’m bisexual and i know at least one of the authors is bisexual and i still can’t wrap my head around this:
the MC’s love interest repeatedly refuses to believe that tanner, his boyfriend, is bisexual despite his statements otherwise. he constantly refers to tanner as “liking guys” instead of calling him bisexual. i guess it’s better that outright calling him gay every time, but not cool, and it never gets resolved!!! tanner corrects him once but then seb never changes his wording and it’s never brought up again. it really irks me that this book didn’t do a good job of addressing stereotypes that bi people face all the time and this is one of the biggest ones!! you’re still bisexual if you are in a heterosexual relationship and you’re still bisexual if you’re in a homosexual relationship, and guess what, you’re still bisexual no matter your partners gender if you identify as bisexual!!! so many side characters are like “oh so ur into guys” and tanner’s like “yeah i’m bi” but never talks about what it’s like for him being bi and dealing with that stereotype all the time! it would be the perfect time for him to say “yeah i’m attracted to both guys and girls because i’m bisexual, that doesn’t change because i’m dating a guy”
i guess i was just hopeful that there would be good bi rep in this book because an author is bi, but there was so much telling “i’m bi” and not showing what tanner’s experience being bi is like, and i was disappointed. anyway, onto other things i didn’t like:
the parents: not awful but i don’t understand how they could be like “yeah we love you and we support you but let’s move to fucking utah because of my career where you’ll be forced to go back into the closet for your own safety even though we want nothing but the best for you” bullshit.
the “friends”: so many fucking namedrops throughout this book and i don’t know who anybody is other than autumn even though they’re supposedly tanner’s friends. dad goes “don’t forget about manny and eric” and i didn’t even know who eric was. did he actually exist in this book other than characters saying his name?
don’t even get me started on tanner and autumn. first of all, she’s in love with him for the entire book and he KNOWS that but they never talk about it and he’s constantly flirty with her and really affectionate BUT THEN
Spoiler
sebastian breaks tanner’s heart and he goes crying to autumn and they kiss! wow! then he takes her virginity while forgetting that she’s even a virgin.the plot. or should i say lack of plot? there was no plot. literally no plot. only insta love and terrible annoying drama that never got resolved and just magically disappeared. things are mentioned once and then never seen again. there was a big deal with prom and then suddenly the characters have graduated and gone to college but prom never happened??
the ending. it’s so sudden and there is no lead up to the last chapter (which is randomly in sebastian’s POV?) and the epilogue is just there to give us a happy ending and tell us the seb has changed and is accepting of his sexuality now, but it doesn’t show us!!! just tells us!!!!
another random point: i haven’t seen anybody else mention anything about this but i think it’s important - it really bothered me at times that a huge chunk of tanner’s internal monologue was thinking about sex. don’t get me wrong, it’s definitely not a bad thing that a bisexual teenage boy thinks about having sex with a boy he is attracted to, and i think that is an important thing to have in YA novels, but i don’t think it was discussed in the right way. i appreciated the “talks” given to tanner by his parents, but i was uncomfortable because it felt very much like the “older woman trying to write teenage male characters” by having him think about sex all the time instead of trying to incorporate a message about how it’s healthy to be a teenager and think about sex, to want sex, if that makes sense. and idk maybe the whole “i want to have sex but my religion is against it and i’m conflicted” could have happened but it didn’t, what a shocker, and instead it was just “oh i can’t stop thinking about him i wonder if he’s ever had sex” because the MC was a teenage boy