Review by tristatereader - Autoboyography

tristatereader 's review for:

Autoboyography by Christina Lauren

3.0

challenging dark emotional hopeful sad tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

So this is going to be a first for me in the review department. I usually write my synopsis and then my opinion, but bear with me in the opinion section because I legit don’t know how I felt about this book.

Tanner is a high school senior who gets dared by his bestie Autumn to take a school Seminar in which he must write a book in one semester. In the Seminar, he meets the TA Sebastian, a freshman in college at BYU who completed the course last year and had his book published. A major plot point in this book is that they live in Provo, Utah, which is primarily an LDS (Mormon) community. And Sebastian just happens to be the bishop’s son.

Tanner is a half-Jewish queer kid from Palo Alto who was forced back into the closet after moving to Provo for his mom’s job. He can’t wait to leave Provo and hopes to attend college as far away from Utah as possible. Sebastian is the golden boy of the LDS community who is on the straight and narrow to becoming a Brother and taking his mission trip. But Sebastian’s path isn’t as “straight” as his extremist community believes, and sparks immediately fly between the two; the epitome of insta-love.

This book absolutely wrecked me. Even my normal 7-10 business days of recovery time from an emotional book won’t help me with this one. I enjoyed the storyline, and the writing was done well, but holy shit why am I so sad?! I found myself questioning if Sebastian’s Mormon portrayal was accurate because of how quickly he acted on his feelings despite decades of religious trauma telling him it was a sin. If any former LDS member feels comfortable, I’d love to hear your take. Also, I will never get over the Tanner / Autumn (ahem) situation because that was just so unnecessary, hurtful, and messy 🥺 Idk y’all… I’m torn.