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A review by jugglingpup
Queerleaders by M.B. Guel
2.0
To see more reviews check out MI Book Reviews.
I got an ARC of this book.
I got this book, because iam had it. I am that easily swayed to read a book. I knew nothing else about it except that the title was a pun. I am a simple queer. Give me a dad joke and a queer love story (preferably with cowboys or with a cute dog sidekick) and I am in.
The book wasn’t great. It wasn’t terrible, but the bad outweighed the good. The writing itself wasn’t all that bad. It was typical YA stuff. Nothing earth shattering, but better than a lot of things I have read. The issue with mostly the plots and characters.
Mack: of course the main character would be a more masculine lesbian. That is so much easier to digest for people. What I would not give for a femme/femme pairing. Give me two girls who do each other’s nails and then go “fuck, I think I love her”. Though I do love butch characters, it just was annoying in the sense that there were so many tropes and stereotypes that you have the butch character messing up relationships exactly like how the boys do in YA books. You could replace Mack with a guy and the book would barely have to change. Her character is pretty flat. She is obsessed with a cheerleader, but then through the book learns that she really doesn’t like her? I just didn’t buy the romance.
Lila: She was totally in love with Mack. There is no denying it, except in this world love is based on physical attraction. So their love is totally discredited since there was no “spark”. I’m sorry. I ship Lila and Mack hardcore. They are there for each other, they trust each other, they care for each other. 10/10 best relationship in the book. (Hell, Lila actually texts with Mack’s mom. It is a match made in heaven.)
Chad: Can you just guess his role and personality? Enough said.
Plots: Mack is outed in front of the whole school. Outing her is never really punished in any way. It is the whole catalyst for the wonderfully YA idea of hooking up with every cheerleader to prove I don’t know what. There is constant homophobia. It generally stays in the area of physically harmless pranks. It read as very middle school. I had similar pranks played on me in middle school. So it was really boring for me, but could be really triggering for someone else. The homophobia is never addressed. It just is. Hell, Mack is told that she is getting it placed in her record that she is gay since it is a Catholic high school (that fact is not revealed until after the scene where Mack is harassed by her principal I believe which made the scene just confusing). So there is institutional homophobia that is not addressed until the very end, but in a teen romcom ending (to be fair, the ending had my favorite part. The teacher’s response to the scene at prom is just great).
If Mack was not interchangeable with every single whiny cis boy from YA that makes his own messes, then this book might have been more fun. The only reason this book was gay was there were girls kissing and even one of the pairs of girls kissing was doing to to counter act “the gay”. So homophobic gay kissing? I just don’t understand.
I wanted to like this book.
I got an ARC of this book.
I got this book, because iam had it. I am that easily swayed to read a book. I knew nothing else about it except that the title was a pun. I am a simple queer. Give me a dad joke and a queer love story (preferably with cowboys or with a cute dog sidekick) and I am in.
The book wasn’t great. It wasn’t terrible, but the bad outweighed the good. The writing itself wasn’t all that bad. It was typical YA stuff. Nothing earth shattering, but better than a lot of things I have read. The issue with mostly the plots and characters.
Mack: of course the main character would be a more masculine lesbian. That is so much easier to digest for people. What I would not give for a femme/femme pairing. Give me two girls who do each other’s nails and then go “fuck, I think I love her”. Though I do love butch characters, it just was annoying in the sense that there were so many tropes and stereotypes that you have the butch character messing up relationships exactly like how the boys do in YA books. You could replace Mack with a guy and the book would barely have to change. Her character is pretty flat. She is obsessed with a cheerleader, but then through the book learns that she really doesn’t like her? I just didn’t buy the romance.
Lila: She was totally in love with Mack. There is no denying it, except in this world love is based on physical attraction. So their love is totally discredited since there was no “spark”. I’m sorry. I ship Lila and Mack hardcore. They are there for each other, they trust each other, they care for each other. 10/10 best relationship in the book. (Hell, Lila actually texts with Mack’s mom. It is a match made in heaven.)
Chad: Can you just guess his role and personality? Enough said.
Plots: Mack is outed in front of the whole school. Outing her is never really punished in any way. It is the whole catalyst for the wonderfully YA idea of hooking up with every cheerleader to prove I don’t know what. There is constant homophobia. It generally stays in the area of physically harmless pranks. It read as very middle school. I had similar pranks played on me in middle school. So it was really boring for me, but could be really triggering for someone else. The homophobia is never addressed. It just is. Hell, Mack is told that she is getting it placed in her record that she is gay since it is a Catholic high school (that fact is not revealed until after the scene where Mack is harassed by her principal I believe which made the scene just confusing). So there is institutional homophobia that is not addressed until the very end, but in a teen romcom ending (to be fair, the ending had my favorite part. The teacher’s response to the scene at prom is just great).
If Mack was not interchangeable with every single whiny cis boy from YA that makes his own messes, then this book might have been more fun. The only reason this book was gay was there were girls kissing and even one of the pairs of girls kissing was doing to to counter act “the gay”. So homophobic gay kissing? I just don’t understand.
I wanted to like this book.