What If It’s Us (What If It’s Us #1)

i hated this book. i have no idea why people praise it so much. i decided to read it because i saw it ranked highly in entertainment magazine. i really tried to like it. i really did.

the big problem: i cant tell the two characters apart. the story is from the perspective of two boys who fall in love, but i could never know who is who. like is this the kid with the ex boyfriend or the kid with the job internship or what? i never knew. because of this, i never connected to either of the boys. if they died i literally wouldnt be sad. i felt no connection to them.

also, arthur (one of the two main characters) is a toxic and jealous person. pretty much all the cheap drama in the story is about how hes jealous of bens exboyfriend and hes having himself little pity parties. and ben is always like sorry and theres no reason to be sorry hes just feeding arthurs toxic nature.

also, the book is sporting so many pop culture references that it feels like theyre shoving it down our throats. maybe im just a little biased because i despise musicals and that is much of what ben and arthur obsess about, but they repeatedly mention multiple pop culture things and it gets insanely cringey.

the book also moves too slow. it took 200 pages for ben and arthur to start dating. TWO HUNDRED!! THATS HALF THE BOOK!! also, the ending was dragged out and i kept expecting to turn the page and see the acknowledgements but it just kept going, just kept stabbing me again and again.

i tried to enjoy this book. i really, really did. i read the whole thing despite being bored the whole time. i actually hoped someone would die so it would get interesting. i wish i had never decided to read it. a lot of people seem to enjoy it, so maybe you will too, but heed this warning. its a terrible book.

I dont know if were a love story or a story about love.

Right up front: this book brought tears to my eyes at the end. It channeled all the trauma of being a teenager, as well as the joy of coming out at last. The story of Ben and Arthur should be entirely different from my own story they could practically be my grandchildren. But no, it resonated deeply in me, both as a gay man, and a father.

I am intensely cynical when I approach young adult novels from mainstream publishers, particularly when they have gay content. Why? Not sure, but I think its because so many mainstream publishers ignore so much great LGBT content, I automatically wonder why this book? Is it because its safe, acceptable, within received norms as to how much gay is ok?

Being a gay teenager in high school in the very early seventies was awful. Nobody was out. Everyone was afraid. My own experience was not technically that bad, but in retrospect, I was as confused and frightened and isolated as any closeted gay teen at the time. The closet was the default for all of us. Of course, I didnt have books like this back then. I had The Boys in the Band.

Albertalli and Silvera create a lovely rhythm with the structure of this book, alternating between the viewpoints of Puerto Rican Ben from Manhattan and Jewish Arthur from ex-urban Atlanta. These seventeen-year-olds are fully fleshed-out, richly dimensional. They observe the world around them closely, and they respond to it. Most importantly of all, they have parents they love (in that eye-rolling teenaged way) and friends who matter hugely in their lives. We see through these boys eyes, and we see a lot.

The futility of high-school romances is sort of at the center of this book, but I think thats a bit of a red herring. The interplay between Bens wounded cynicism and Arthurs starry-eyed romanticism is critical to their relationship with each other, but its also essential in their relationship to their friends Jessie and Ethan for Arthur, and the more complex quartet of Dylan, Harriet, Hudson and Samantha for Ben. All these young people need each other but are groping forward in their hormone-infused teen lives to figure out how the different kinds of love love of family, love of friends, romantic love are going to be part of them. It is confusing and aggravating and frightening. Which, as I remember if I think very hard on my own high-school years, is exactly right.

I want to say that theres no happy ending for this book, but in fact there is: its just not the kind of happy ending we as a culture are primed to see in a romantic story. I will give no detail, but suffice it to say that as I ended this book, blinking away tears, I felt hopeful and comforted. Maturity is something I wasnt looking for in these pages, and its discovery therein was an unexpected gift.

Get two bestselling LGBTQ authors together and have them write a novel based on the lyrics of a three minute Dear Evan Hansen song and what do you get? Mostly you get 400 pages of pop culture references as filler.

In the real world if two gorgeous, gay teen boys meet in NYC and are attracted to one another it would take about twenty minutes before their pants are down. Theyd suck each other off first and see if they had anything in common to chat about later.

Ah, but this is a gay romance book. Its Becky Albertalli and that means ferris wheels and teen angst and lots and lots of Harry Potter references. How many Harry Potter references? Im glad you asked, because I started counting them. Twenty-eight. Its as if our authors Becky and Adam thought invoking JK Rowling repeatedly would increase book sales.

But it isnt just Potter, its sims, and instagram and Hamilton, and yes, Evan Hansen (first mention on page one, how subtle). This book is all schmaltz and feigned emotional conflicts where none really exist.

Heres what surprised me…its terribly written. There are a bunch of times the authors write the words Guess how and dont end the sentence with a question mark. Guess how much I enjoy being the sweaty intern. Come on. Did they forget where the question mark was on the keyboard?

They actually reference Craigslist Missed Connections in this novel. Which brings me to another point…how many pop culture references are too many, and when does over-using them make your work dated and archaic? I mean, no one, literally no one uses Craigslist missed connections anymore…and Craigslist itself probably wont exist in five years.

Was I engaged by the main characters Arthur and Ben? Yeah, I guess. After a few hundred pages I was like, For the love of God just have sex already! My favorite character was one of the secondary ones…Dylan. At least he was the comic relief in a book that drags to a very unfulfilling resolution.

I’ve not read Becky Albertalli but have loved all of Adam Silvera’s books to date, so perhaps it was half the unknown quantity that left me surprised to discover what a delight this novel is. I also tend to be a bit of a cynic so was taken aback by my almost literal punch-the-air moments when following the course of Ben and Arthur’s relationship. For some reason, moreover, I felt it unlikely that I would connect with characters less than half my age, but the authors do such an honest, realistic job of capturing the uncertainty and insecurity surrounding burgeoning relationships that it becomes universally recognisable. I applaud them for eschewing a fairytale ending – which would have been completely out of step with everything else, despite the superficially fanciful series of events that brings Ben and Arthur together in the first place – but also for tempering the bittersweet with the hopeful. A great book I’m already looking forward to reading again at some point down the line.

The third great YA MM romance to be published this year, the other two being Greg Howard’s “Social Intercourse” and L. Philips’ “Sometime after midnight”.

Ben and Arthur are both very well portrayed characters, as different to each other as Becky and Adams writing styles. Beckys lighter approach and Adams more reflective and occasionally melancholy prose work well together and make the two boys personalities all the more believable.

Initially, Arthur (whose chapters are written by Becky) is the boy you cant help warming to the most. He has an endearing naivety and sense of wonder that make him easy to love. His words capture him beautifully, and its not hard to find examples:

I believe in love at first sight. Fate, the universe, all of it. But not how youre thinking. I dont mean it in the our souls were split and youre my other half forever and ever sort of way. I just think youre meant to meet some people. I think the universe nudges them into your path.

I flop back onto my bed, and my whole bodys buzzing. Heart, stomach, fingertips, all of it. My brain wont stop spinning. I feel like Im living inside a love song.

Ben (whose chapters are written by Adam) is a very different boy, a little introverted and, it eventually transpires, a nerd (in the best possible way). He has been bruised by a relationship that did not end well, and it informs his worldview, which makes him come across as rather negative. Some Amazon reviewers have been unkind about him, one even suggesting hes selfish. Ben is certainly not perfect (but then neither is Arthur), but selfish he is not. We must remember that he is still recovering from his split with Hudson and, reading between the lines, the relationship was not a loving one of mutual respect, certainly not on the part of Hudson:

I guess I didnt expect the breakup to suck if I did the breaking up. But since Hudsons the one who kissed somebody else, it still feels like he really ended things. Things hadnt been right between us since his parents got divorced, but I was patient with him. Like when I let him plan my birthday and he took me to a concert of his favourite band.

When they start dating, its Arthur who makes all the effort, but I think this is because Ben did not have a romance-filled relationship with Hudson, and his head was still not out of that mindset. There are plenty of clues pointing to the fact that buried within is a true romantic. For example:

Dylan watches Samantha as if she were glowing. I wonder when I went dim for Hudson. If I ever glowed for him at all.

As his relationship with Arthur develops, Ben undergoes an extraordinary and affecting transformation, and the ultra-romantic boy he really is haltingly reveals himself. His love for Arthur, and the way he expresses that love, is one of the highest points of a novel full of high points.

This book is truly magical, building towards an achingly beautiful and elegiac third part and epilogue that will leave you feeling emotionally drained and your tissue supply exhausted. The nearest thing I can compare it to is Call me by your name (the film rather than the book), but in truth it has a character all its own. I mentioned the other two fantastic 2018 YA MM romances at the beginning, and they are both well worth your time. However, if I were asked to choose one over the others, I would pick What if its us without a moments hesitation.

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