Books

Book 648: Honestly Ben – Bill Konigsberg

This one was pretty forgettable for me, which is sad because it’s actually a good book. I think the problem is that I read Openly Straight, basically the first half of this book/story a little over five years ago. If I would’ve read these back to back I would’ve probably had much stronger feelings about this one.

Let’s start with what didn’t work: the swimming analogy. The book opens with Ben, the protagonist, going to swimming lessons for the first time and sinking to the bottom of the pool. Konigsberg uses this as a very clunky metaphor for Ben’s life and thoughts at the start of the book. I was honestly hoping it wouldn’t resurface at the end of the book—which isn’t totally fair because I would’ve been more pissed if he didn’t complete the metaphor—but it did and it just made me sigh and shake my head.

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Books

Book 646: How (Not) to Ask a Boy to Prom – S.J. Goslee

How is it that each one of these I read is able to best the last? Don’t get me wrong, they’re not all perfect, some have plot holes and others need better copy editors, but in general they just keep getting better.

I put this one on hold at the library at some point, probably around the same time I read Bloom, and it came in recently so of course I decided to read it ASAP. What I wasn’t expecting was for this to be a sort of mash-up of all the teen rom-coms I grew up with (think 10 Things I hate About YouShe’s All ThatClueless and even I’m pretty sure some Pretty in Pink or 16 Candles.

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Books

Book 644: Encore (The Backstagers #3) – James Tynion IV, Rian Sygh & Walter Baiamonte

Of the three, this was my favorite. Rebels Without Applause and The Show Must Go On were both good reads and absolutely must be read together, but I think this one was more what I was expecting when I picked up the firs tone. This is a series of vignettes centered around Valentine’s Day and Halloween. They’re short, they’re adorable, and they don’t require knowing the entire backstory of those first two volumes.

My favorite of the stories was the Valentine’s Day story around Beckett. Who doesn’t love a bah humbug story with a happy ending? It didn’t hurt that Jory and Hunter were extra adorable.

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Books

Book 643: The Show Must Go On (The Backstagers #2) – James Tynion IV, Rian Sygh & Walter Baiamonte

This was a  good quick read and a must read if you want to have any idea about what’s going on in Rebels Without Applause. They really should’ve put this into one collection. Maybe they did it because of the timing of these last four issues, but it wasn’t worth reading one and then waiting for the other.

The Backstagers: The Show Must Go On contains all the backstory that Volume 1 really needed to make it make sense, mostly. There seems to be a time jump between issue four (end of volume one) and five (beginning of volume two). I’m not sure if I’ve missed a lot (there are novels and I believe this was a webcomic) because the whole thing seems more disjointed than I thought looking back on it.

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Books

Book 640: What If It’s Us? – Becky Albertalli & Adam Silvera

I hate that I keep describing these young adult rom-com books as adorable, but in my old age (bwhaahaahaaahaa, but seriously I’m ancient in gay years) they really are quaint adorable stories that I wish there were more of growing up.

This one is a super cute comedy of errors and/or serendipitous romp through New York City. Well off “country boy”, Arthur, is spending the summer in NYC with an internship at his mom’s law office and runs into not-so-well off “city boy” Ben and a series of adorable meet-cutes and miscommunications happen to give you this fun quick read.

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