It’s so nice I read it twice—no, seriously. I finished it and then the next morning decided I wanted to read it again. That’s twice this year (excluding illustrated/graphic novels)! The other double read this year was Two for Trust and the real connection of the two is that they could both be easily turned into one of those wonderfully cheesy made-for-TV movies that whenever you see it you just leave it on and inevitably get drawn into it.
You could definitely see where van Whye got his inspiration for this #ownvoices story. He acknowledged he was inspired by She’s All That (IMDb link) from the 90s, Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli and To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han. And this definitely deserves to be up there with these great coming of age stories.
Continue reading “Book 731 & 732: Date Me, Bryson Keller – Kevin van Whye”
I’m not sure I generally would’ve opted to read a post-apocalyptic fiction novel right now (thank you global pandemic). However, I thought my dedicated readers (oh hey all 10-or-so of you :-D) might like a change up from all the MM romance novels I’ve been blasting through. That, and this was sent by the publisher back in mid-February . . . so yeah, here it is!*
I think what I like about this series more than most of the others is that it pays as much homage to the cult of Austen as it does to the original Austen works. Each of the books in this trilogy (maybe the series?) take a lead from one of Austen’s original novels, but then move away from it diving into the fantastical world of the Janeites. Connelly once again dropped a tidbit of Austen-dom knowledge I wasn’t aware of in the Austen Authors website, which was a neat discovery, but seems to have undergone a major change since it was originally mentioned in this book. [Edit 10.24.2022 and apparently no longer exists, leaving the link in case it comes back up.]
Coming hot on the heels of 
Sometimes you just have to eat your own words. I really don’t like reading self-published works. In general, they are not edited (structurally, thematically, copy) appropriately, but then I stumble across a self-published book, like this one, and I am pleasantly surprised.