I was so excited for this book and hated it so much. ( )

I love the diversity in this book. Not really much else to say to be honest. It felt crass and not at all romantic. For me there was no spark between Nandans and … *looks at blurb*... Dave. Please understand that this wasn’t horrible, it just wasn’t engaging enough for me. I don’t really remember much of what that happened and I only finished it about 40mins ago. It kind of just plodded along while Nandans explored his sexuality. I absolutely loved ‘We Contain Multitudes’ and ‘Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe’ so I might get the tissues out and do some re-reading.
( )

Messy, problematic and a brutally honest depiction of teen sexuality.

'But people don't want honesty. They don't want mess. They don't want confusion. They don't want awkwardness or second thoughts or . . . or . . . or any of it. They want a simple story.' - Nandan

Despite its gorgeous cover art and sweet title, this is not really a queer YA romance novel. The romantic leads are not fated to be together (they're not even particularly healthy together) and there is no adorable 'will-they-won't-they' as they try to find out if the other one is interested in them too. (This is not to knock those books — I have read and enjoyed those books — this is just not one of those books.)

The main character, Nandan, is undoubtedly manipulative. In his pursuit to understand his sexuality, he attempts to manoeuvre people through their desires in order to figure out what he wants and get it. Since he doesn't know what he wants, he's obviously fairly unsuccessful, but still he tries to make people like him and possibly even love him. We've all met a Nandan in our lives - we may have even been a Nandan at some point. The ideas and values he espouses about sexuality, gender and relationships are definitely not a good definition of these identities but they do feel like an honest depiction of an adolescent attempting to understand these issues and himself. (A different book might have had Nandan learn from an elder about these issues; who could also explain the harm his behaviour can cause — but, for better or worse, I believe this book was always more interested in questions than answers.)

The book's meandering plot and lack of character development often felt directionless, but again, this felt true to the questioning and 'confused' themes of the main character. You might not like Nandan, or the way he behaves, but I ultimately found it refreshing to see a queer YA novel that didn't expect its characters to get everything right first time.

What I think this book expresses brilliantly is that queer youth have as much a right to a messy adolescence as their straight peers. ( )

I gave it an extra star for the cover. It is a beautiful cover (wish cover artists got more billing). This is not a romance, but rather some confused teenagers. If you go into it knowing that and not expecting the former, you'll be OK. ( )

sometimes, folks...the narration is just plain annoying. i'm not gonna be fooled again