While the story touches on a lot of important topics, especially in the queer space (religion vs sexuality, safe queer sex) I found the romance itself lacking chemistry. In my opinion, this novel handled familial relationships much better, but since it's a contemporary romance I feel like the execution of the last one matters less.

This was a two star to start with. Hated the characters, with all the feelings of guilt and lies (although this didn't get much better throughout the book!) But I think I'm going to give it 3.5 stars in total because there was a lot of info contained in this story plus bi-visability! I even learnt a few things. I think for a female queer teenager this book would be very informative and empowering.

So far, I’ve read (or tried—sorry, As I Descended, you just were not my thing) all of Robin Talley’s novels. She’s consistently high quality and focuses on realities of f/f relationships that no one else does. That continues in Our Own Private Universe, which I think may be my favorite of her novels thus far.


Aki, her brother, and their youth group leader father are all in Mexico for the summer to help build a new church. They’re part of a big group with teens (and a few adults) from three congregations (all part of a larger church organization). When I first started, I was nervous, because I’m very easily annoyed by books about faith, but Talley does a nice job with balance. There are people with hateful opinions, people who believe that faith is completely compatible with being lgbt, and people who are honestly trying to figure out how they feel. The book is neither preachy nor dismissive of religion. It’s a nice readalike for Georgia Peaches and Other Forbidden Fruit. Biracial Aki becomes more and more invested in her church over the summer, but in a way that even I found pretty sweet and inspiring.

Aki and her friend Lori make a pact to have a “summer fling” while in Mexico. Though Aki’d been planning to hook up with a boy, she finds herself drawn to Christa. The two quickly strike up a flirtation and then some serious kissing. They’re a decent ship, but the shippiness takes a hit because they’re both lying about things from the outset, and that doesn’t really get my ship engines going. I very much don’t unship them, but that relationship was less emotionally impactful to me than Aki’s with her father or with her church.

In Our Own Private Universe, Talley brings up the topic of safe sex for two women, which I think might be a first for f/f, at least in YA. It’s awesome, but also “dental dam” has to be the least sexy term in the whole entire world. The resulting sex scenes don’t have as much hotness, but the realness, both awkwardness and the fun, is pretty great.

While not precisely my sort of read, I was very impressed with Our Own Private Universe. There’s a reason I keep reading Talley, even though I generally only care about fluffy romances in my contemporary novels.

I was nervous going into Our Own Private Universe, because my introduction to this author was kind of a disaster. But I am so glad that I decided to give her another chance! Aki has just realized that she’s bisexual and the only person who knows is her BFF, Lori. The girls are on a trip with their youth group and two others to Mexico, when they form a pact. They’re going to have summer flings! Aki already has her eyes on Christa, but that pact gives her the extra push that needs to just go for it.

Our Own Private Universe has a lot of great stuff happening in it! Other than having more than one bisexual character, each with their own experiences and views on their sexuality, there’s talk of alternative relationships. We’re also immersed in a religious group and get to see how Aki’s sexuality fits into that. Aki also becomes invested in some of the measures that her church is going to be voting on ranging from marriage equality, climate change, and global health care. All of these are very important issues and I was happy to see teens and young adults having serious discussions and thinking critically about them.

As for the romantic portion, Aki and Christa were very sweet at times, but also frustrating! I suppose this just made them feel realistic. Christa is a year older than Aki, but comes across as more experience which has Aki nervous. She’s such an overthinker, but I liked that because it leads to discussions on safe sex for two girls which is not something I have ever read before! Where I got frustrated with them, was that there was a lack of trust at times. However, being in close proximity with such a small group of people when rumors start flying makes it easy to point fingers, since there’s only so many people around. At least they talk it out, if not right away.

One thing that I noticed about Our Own Private Universe which is very similar to What We Left Behind, is that the author tends to give off a lot of information but in a textbook sort of way. It’s very important information, which I certainly think needs to be there, but it didn’t feel natural. Aki and Christa seem to be taking turns reading from a brochure about sexuality when they talk about their identities and relationship. Maybe this is how teens talk today? They certainly have more access to information than I did ten years ago at that age. But even still, it was info-dumpy and the girls didn’t sound genuine.

Overall, I really enjoyed Our Own Private Universe. I’m always interested in reading about how religious characters, or those who are part of a religious community, handle coming out or just being queer among their family and peers. I’m happy to report that Aki has a pretty easy time coming out, so this is a happy queers book!

3.5 Stars

'Our Own Private Universe' is a new young adult contemporary romance that focuses on love, friendship, learning who you are, and accepting yourself. It's a great read for fans of the genre along with readers who enjoy LGBTQ issues, coming of age tales, and those wanting to diversify their shelves. Here are my pros and cons for the book:

Pros:
- Realistic and likeable main character in Aki
- Easy to empathize with the characters and what they're going through
- Universal issues along with topics dealing with LGBTQ
- Appeals to a wide audience
- First person point of view

Cons:
- I couldn't fully identify with Aki because we're so different. Even though the story is told from her perspective, I couldn't connect with her as much as I wanted to.
- I'm personally not a huge fan of contemporary fiction, especially romance, so this wasn't exactly my cup of tea. I definitely recommend it to fans of contemporary fiction, romance, young adult fiction, and coming of age stories.

Another brilliant book from Robin Talley. As a high school teacher passionate about getting teens reading, books like this are a gift. Brilliant, sensitively rendered characters to whom all my students will relate. My students can't wait to read this. Thank you!

2.5 stars

Things I Liked:

♦ Aki is bi & POC. This is awesome! We need more of this kind of diversity in YA so I applaud it lots. Though it's not own voices and as a someone that's not POC, I don't know how accurately this is repped. I CAN however vouch for the bi part. Sort of. Almost. I am happy it's repped, I'm not very happy with how it was executed...

♦ The author doesn't shy away from sexy times between two girls. YAY for that! I also want more of this in YA. Desperately. So I wildly applaud the author for having the guts to do this. Also yay for them discussing safe sex.

♦ The topics this book brings up and also the very diverse cast. Hurray for both!


Things I Did Not Like:

♦ All That Drama. SO MUCH OF IT. And a lot of it so very unnecessary and it frustrated me a lot. I did not care for any of it.

♦ Most of the characters are very annoying and I did not connect to any of them whatsoever.

♦ Biphobia/Homophobia, bullying, AND AGAIN SO MUCH DRAMA. Do not like. I know the MC is 15 but come on... Really? I was never that dramatic at that age.

♦ The writing wasn't my thing. I just could not get into it. I read this in one sitting only because I knew I'd never pick it up again if I didn't finish it immediately.

♦ Where's the plot?? Honestly, there wasn't much of a plot outside of the stupid pointless drama. Which is annoying. Because I kind of like books that have an actual plot. A good one at that. But I did not find one in this book.

Overal this one was very much a nope for me but it does have some great points. Though unfortunately they were not enough to save this book for me. I do encourage you to try it out and form your own opinion of it.

I don't know that I'm exactly the right audience for a book like this, given that I didn't get raised with religion and don't really understand the fanaticism depicted in books like this and Georgia Peaches and Other Fruit.

To me, this just read like a modern day fic of two girls who were in love but were scared about coming out. And that meant that this wasn't the most thrilling book that I've read by Robin Talley because it's been done so many times before. That isn't to say it was badly written, but it was quite a bit less interesting than I've started to expect books by Robin are going to be.

Aki knows that she's bi at the start of the book. The only person she's told is her best friend Lori who, thankfully, happens to be okay with it. There isn't really a lot of on page people not being okay with different sexualities. Quite the opposite, in fact. Instead, what we get is a lot of fear and talking about not being able to be honest about liking people of the same gender.

I found myself not liking Christa for quite a lot of the novel, and the fact that her story was where the majority of the drama came from didn't really appeal to me as a reader. I was more interested in Aki's friendships and relationship with her dad. I would have loved to see more of Madison, she seemed kickass.

The story also covers a lot of more interesting points rather than homophobia, such as climate change, safe sex, generational differences, gun control, and general social activism. These too interested me more than the main romance and I would have loved to see more social activism from this cast of teens throughout the novel rather than almost all of it being shunted more or less just to the last section of it.

Regarding representation, Robin Talley’s Our Own Private Universe features a lot of elements that are sorely lacking in Young Adult books. The main character is biracial and she’s one of multiple LGBTQ characters in the story. The story takes place during a youth mission trip to Mexico, giving the characters perspective on international issues and religious community all at once. There are genuine talks and portrayals of sexual relationships between two women. The novel absolutely deserves to be applauded for these elements, but our overall analysis of the book is a little more complex than that.

Our Own Private Universe has a central theme that’s consistently driven in throughout the books: Everyone lies about things in order to protect themselves. There’s nothing wrong with the message itself. It shows readers that it’s hard to be true to yourself. As part of Aki’s self-discovery and coming out, it’s relevant. But the execution of the theme falls flat in a way that reinforces stereotypes and felt more harmful than enlightening.

Aki and Christa meet on the first night of their trip and the attraction is instantaneous. The first couple interactions between them are sweet and show their chemistry, but things go a bit off the deep end from there. Without delving into specifics that would constitute spoiler territory, Aki and Christa build a relationship on a basis of secrecy and misrepresentation. The secrecy is reasonable-- Aki isn’t ready to share her sexuality with the world yet and Christa has sanctimonious parents who would likely disown her if they found out. How they choose to explore their relationship and time of discovery is their right. However, I struggled with the misrepresentation.

Throughout the book, Aki and Christa are consistently lying to each other. There’s no bombshell “big secret” one feels compelled to hide from the other. Instead, these two are making several things up and omitting truths about their everyday lives to seem more interesting, which is certainly teenage behavior to a point, but it is exhaustingly overused here. It’s not a few things here or there. It’s everything. Because of this, the couple spends most of the novel alternating between discovering each other sexually and arguing over anything and everything. After their connection really begins, we really don’t see them having a conversation in which they get along. It made it hard to root for Aki and Christa, because I didn’t feel like they were in a healthy relationship. There were so many lies, it almost seemed to say “It doesn’t matter if the person you care about most is never truly genuine with you.” I want characters to be imperfect, but I also need to believe they have each other’s best interests at heart.

However, it’s worth noting that when it comes to the sexual situations, Robin Talley did a great job. The novel discusses how even in sexual education classes, gay and lesbian sex is never explored. Aki has to find the information on her own and while it can feel a little like a guidance counselor’s pamphlet at times, this is information that matters to young female couples who want to take the next step. When the actual scenarios play out, Talley doesn’t fade to black, but doesn’t turn it into a porno, either. I respect the difficulty of achieving balance there and the author does it well.

But back to the troublesome dishonesty. It’s further expounded upon with reveals from important secondary characters like Aki’s father, brother, and best friend. While it makes sense to have additional examples and thus show us that it’s not only Aki and Christa who struggle with honesty, some of this was just nonsensical. There was one exposed secret in particular that didn’t even feel necessary or meaningful, but the characters reacted as if their world had just exploded. I’m not overtly religious, but the deception is particularly tricky to digest given the religious setting. If the author’s goal was to denote the hypocrisy of religious people on an exaggerated scale, it would make sense, but I don’t think that was actually the intention. I feel like this is something that someone with a religious background could cover better than me.

On the other side of that, some big, actual issues felt like they were brushed under the rug. Aki is adjusting to being bisexual, but rarely addresses being biracial as well. It’s stated as a fact and basically left alone after that. There’s even an instance in which a character makes a harmful racist statement (Paraphrasing: “I hear black people don’t like gays getting married”) and she barely reacts. She thinks about it with annoyance for a while, but then she just lets it go. There wasn’t much introspection there. Also, the novel ignores a major problem in Christa’s life: She has rigid, controlling, bigoted parents who will either cut her off someday or force her to live a lie. This is met with a hopeful “Oh well, guess I’ll work on getting them to accept some things about me while still hiding a lot about myself” at the end. This isn’t my personal experience, so I’m trying not to judge, but I feel like leaving that situation in the wind as if it has a bright outlook in the distant future is unrealistic.

I will give Our Own Private Universe some kudos on the awareness scale, though. The Holy Life churches these teens belong to are taking stances on important social issues in the coming months. It all culminates in a major debate on things like international aid, police brutality, and yes, gay marriage. We see teens researching, discussing, and developing their own opinion on major social issues outside the sphere of their family influences. Yes, please! More of this!

It’s important to note that I’m an adult, straight, white, agnostic woman. The story being told here is not my own and while that doesn’t affect my ability to enjoy stories about different people, there’s a level of privilege here that can subconsciously mar my perspective on others’ experience. Someone who has had different experiences might get something completely different and perhaps more meaning out of this novel, so I think it’s important to consider it firsthand.

Robin Talley’s Our Own Private Universe is the charming tale of a young girl exploring her sexuality and wondering about her place in the world.


Our Own Private Universe tells the story of fifteen-year-old Aki entering into her first real relationship, which is also her first real “proof” to herself that she is indeed bisexual. Aki and Christa’s relationship develops over the course of the novel, at times limping along, at times moving at leaps and bounds. Because of their families’ involvement in their church – Aki’s father is the minister – they are forced to lie and sneak around, searching for their own place where they can just be. In that sense, the book does wonderfully. Talley really captured the breathless joy of first love, as well as how easy it is to become lost in it to the detriment of other aspects of your life.

I can’t personally speak to how accurately Talley describes a girl who is coming to terms with her bisexuality, but I can appreciate a book where both main characters are bisexual women. It’s also refreshing how much careful dialogue there is about the LGBTQ+ spectrum as a whole, and which labels may or may not work for the characters as individuals. (As someone who is still trying to figure out where she fits on that scale, sometimes labels make you realize something you didn’t already know.) There is also a lot of discussion about consent and safe sex, which is definitely important especially in YA literature. A lot of schools in the United States don’t adequately cover these issues, and they are so, so important.

Aki is struggling to define herself in other areas as well. She is a musician who has lost her desire to make music. Prior to the start of the book, she applied for a prestigious arts school and was rejected, so she feels that she is not good enough and promptly quits music completely. This is only vaguely referred to for a bit, but thankfully is brought up again after a couple of chapters. I am not usually a fan of when a major, defining event in a character’s life is only hinted at, especially when it a) defines so much of the character and b) is an ongoing issue throughout the book. Talley did a good job of talking around it but still making it fairly obvious what happened, and then revealing that sooner rather than later.

The conflict is that Aki thinks that her being a musician is the only thing that makes her interesting, especially to Christa, so she doesn’t tell Christa that she has quit music. Starting a relationship by lying about yourself is never a good thing, and this does get addressed later. However, I think Talley makes a very valid point that it’s important to be yourself, and people who are interested in you will never find you boring. (Also, there is nothing wrong with being boring.)

There is a lot going on in Our Own Private Universe; at times it feels like almost too much. Not only is Aki hiding her sexuality from everyone and the fact that she quit music from Christa, she also gets in a fight with her best friend, becomes interested in politics, and learns some pretty big secrets about her family. Everything that’s happening is at least tangentially related, but it can be a little overwhelming. That said, much of what Talley writes about is relevant, especially in today’s turbulent political climate. Not everything needs to be fully fleshed out to be important to a story, and a lot of the topics brought up throughout the book are things that need to be mentioned, if only to start the discussion in the first place.

When it’s all said and done, Our Own Private Universe is a lovely story about finding love and finding yourself. Considering what an awful year 2016 was for fictional queer women (and real ones), it’s nice to start 2017 off with an upbeat, happy story to put a smile on your face. We could all use something to smile about.

Akina (Aki) Hunter and Lori Smith have been best friends forever. Aki and Lori decide visit Mexico with their youth group traveling all the way from their home in Maryland. In a town outside of Tijuana, Aki and Lori help out with a volunteer project for a month with their church, the Holy Life in Silver Spring. In Mexico, there is a conference and a chance for the youth group to meet others from other Holy Life youth groups. Aki doesn't know what to expect when she spends a month in Mexico.

Aki and Christa Lawrence warm up to each other fairly early in the novel and a relationship develops. I like how Robin Talley lets the readers know Aki's thoughts and emotions throughout her journey of exploration of who she is. Aki's older brother Drew and father are on the trip as well. Not only is her friend Lori involved with her life but her family is as well. Her father is a youth minister and is leading the group. Both her father and her brother are very understanding and supportive of Aki. Drew also harbors a secret that he doesn't want his parents to find out about as well. Actually it seems like everyone in this novel has a secret that they don't want others to know about.

Aki's voice is realistic. Many teens will definitely be able to contact to her authenticity. Her trysts with Christa show how love is unpredictable. Talley describes first loves perfectly. That jealousy that one has when the other talks to their ex or even the butterflies one gets when they think about the person they like are feelings that anyone can relate to. It gives teens an idea that what they are feeling is normal. It's okay to whether to feel worried about someone liking you back or even feeling jealous. I was hoping Aki would be more honest since she didn't open up as much to others as I hoped her to. While others opened up to her, she couldn't trust anyone. This caused many friendship and relationship issues throughout the book.

Our Own Private Universe delves into race, interracial relationships and gender/sexuality. Talley writes a novel for people to feel find themselves and to learn about others. I applaud Talley for including safe sex within the novel. Some books don't go into detail about safe sex if sex is ever mentioned in a book. With Our Own Private Universe, Talley researched everything so carefully in order to provide accurate information. This is very important for teens who read this book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harlequin Teen for the ARC, Our Own Private Universe by Robin Talley. Fifteen year old Aki and her best friend, Lori, pinky swear on a bet that they will be exploring their sexuality and rating it and comparing it with each other while with their church group in Mexico. Aki is African American and the preacher’s daughter and it is through her very authentic, honest, questioning character the reader follows her as she meets and traverses a romantic, bisexual relationship with Christa (from another Church group). Aki also has lots of drama with family and friend issues too. What I liked about this book is that it raised many issues and explored many relationships. Through Aki we see the teen world with lying, bullying, best friend, and also family, drama. But as Aki maneuvers her way through her summer trip, love life, and countless serious, happy, striking moments, she becomes a character you root for as she grows and changes messily (loved the debates). The reader gets an up close and questioning look at religion, Mexico, family problems, teen friendships, bullying, and bisexuality. The characters are well drawn (adults and teens) with the added backdrop of living and volunteering in a third world country making this a realistic contemporary novel, teens need. I loved in the Author Notes how Robin Talley wishes she had a book like this to read when she was a teen. Recommended.

I didn't much care for this book. Half the time I felt like I was listening to a lecture on how to have sex and the rest of the time felt like listening to a bunch of people whining about politics, religion, and family drama, but really young people that are only just discovering the world around them. There's so much unnecessary lying, and friend drama, and a weird bullying thing that isn't resolved in any way. They're supposed to be on this missionary project but it doesn't feel that they do anything great for this community, and instead it's all about what they gain and how often they can hide and make out. In fairness this is actually fairly realistic for 15 year olds, but it annoyed me regardless.
I think the main characters personal journey is important, and the scenes of her talking to her loved ones about her sexuality are some of the best parts of the whole book. I really respect the choice to emphasize Aki's own coming out as being separate from her relationship to just my one romantic interest, there are many small moments that make this very clear.
It was uninteresting to me, but I imagine there's a better audience for it, as the writing wasn't terrible and it does make a lot of very positive commentary on intense social topics. 2.5 stars.

*I received a copy of this book from the publisher for my honest review.

I think that this is a very relevant book in our society today, specially in mine where I spend time with teenagers. I have a lot of kids who struggle with figuring out exactly who they are and where they fit and I believe that this book will be a helpful book for them. Well written and relevant, I like the way that it handled the questions that the main character had and how it dealt with acceptance of sexuality.