This is such a lovely and wholesome queer story.
I wanted to love it desperately, but unfortunately, it fell flat for me. Now, I am 37, and this was written for young adults, so that could be the reason. To me, the characters weren’t fleshed out, the conversations were deep but unlikely and ill-timed, and the whole story was… I mean, it was sweet but strangely unrealistic and superficial for some reason. Maybe that’s just me.
Personally, I love it when there’s the aspect of queerness and mental illness in a story, so those parts I liked. I just felt like they weren’t examined in their full potential. Which is fine, of course, not every story has to be deep and meaningful. This story was mostly fast-going and focused on the plot – the NASA program, the reality TV show, and the two boys’ place in them. I felt like this was one of those cases when the focus on the plot took away from the character development, and like all the different characters weren’t different enough, and maybe everything was TOO wholesome? Some of the conversations seemed so serious and deep, but came off as unlikely and ill-placed. What kind of stranger gives you their life story in the first five minutes of meeting you? Or what kind of teenager tells their parents everything and what kind of parent tells their teenage son everything? Just… it didn’t ring true.
There were nostalgic elements from the last century and there were cute friendships, but the romance went too fast. There was no buildup and where’s the fun in that? It was the fastest insta-love and insta-relationship I have ever read in a book.
What I did like was Cal’s dream to be a journalist and his social media career unfolding as the story went. I liked how he put the viewers and the truth first, unlike the reality TV staffers. I liked that his idealism won out in the end, however unlikely that seems in the real world. Maybe this is perfect for young idealists who don’t care about realism in fiction. Who just want to enjoy a story and smile. Sometimes things can get too dark, especially with the element of mental illness, and maybe we don’t always have to fall apart when we read that. I personally prefer hard-hitting stories that make me cry and delve deep into the psychology of a character, but if you prefer lighter, fluffier stories that give you that warm, wholesome feeling, then you might like this much better than I did.
If you like fluffy young adult queer stories, you might love this, especially if you’re younger. If you need deeper and darker depictions of queerness and mental illness, this isn’t the book for you. If you prefer plot over characters and a fast-paced story over slow-burn, this might be fun for you. In the end, this is just my opinion, and I actually did enjoy the story. Enough to give it a respectable 3 star rating.
-Reviewed by Violeta Nedkova
