Love is love is a sweet story about a seventeen year old girl, who lack confidence due to weight issues that falls for a transgender guy, but feels like she doesn't deserve him.

This is a short book that sadly doesn't allow the author to build on the characters or add much depth to the story. I would have liked it to be longer.

Love is Love is a story of discovering self worth and love so others can see the beauty that lies within. Emmy sees herself as a ugly and fat, but Jude sees her as beautiful. Emmy sees Jude as a handsome man even though he doesn't have the money to transition yet. Neither one judges the other, as others have harshly judged them. They accept each other and no longer feel alone and out of place. They belong to each other.

I loved the description of this book when I saw it in Netgalley's Pride Month email. Sadly, it just didn't work for me at all. It's much more of a short story than a "book" and the lack of depth to the characters and their relationships with each other left me feeling cold.

All we know about Emmy, our cis female MC, is that she likes to write poetry and has anxiety. She considers her weight her main feature, and admits herself that she has no personality. She's a 17 year old, but acts like someone much younger and less mature. At the beginning of the story, her mother packs her off to live with her aunt and uncle in Vancouver, and because the book is so short, we have no real idea why - just a hint of Emmy not being happy. When she arrives there, then hits the insta-love for Jude despite knowing barely anything about him except that he's the hottest person Emmy has ever seen and is a trans male. They meet approximately 4 times before she's head over heels in love with him. I'm vaguely baffled by the entire thing. Such a great concept and I would have loved to see it done justice.

*Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC of this book.*

This is not my kind of book, but as a high school teacher-librarian I am looking for titles that speak to our population. That being said, we will likely purchase a copy of this for our library for several reasons: we are working on diversifying our collection with a focus on LGBQT+ literature and this kind of teen romance is incredibly popular.

My dislikes, and reasons I would not adopt this for a course reading, stem from the fact that is a bit on the shallow side of author's craft, the dialogue is stilted and the main character of Emmy is not well rounded and developed. Some of this is probably because I'm a adult, not a teenager, reading this book.

All that being said, there is something still real about Emmy and her over-the-top past and speaks true of being a teenager. She has real struggles (weight, boys, self-criticism, family issues)and the book is frank about them. Emmy's father died years ago and her mom is currently seeing and living with a guy presumably to help make ends meet as they live with him. Following a sexual incident with a popular, male classmate, she agrees to go live with her aunt and uncle in Vancouver. It's there that she meets transgender Jude and very quickly (unbelievably so) falls for him. The rest of the book details their up and down relationship in which Emmy comes to love herself as well.

Emmy is dating Ty, a guy her friends Tiana and Michelle along with her mum and subsequently her stepfather, don't approve of because of him being bad news. Emmy can't take their criticism anymore and decides to stay with her aunt, cousin and uncle, back in Vancouver where her dad was previously before he passed away.

Whilst out there, she unexpectedly finds herself falling for Jude a transgender man whom she met briefly years before by her cousin Paige when he was still Judy.

The two's relationship develops through shared interests of creative subjects from music to poetry and acceptance of each other showing they are creative and open minded individuals.

Through the book we see Emmy struggle and compares herself to Paige and other women around Jude, feeling inadequate because of being the bigger girl and comfort eating away her emotions instead of helping herself feel better in other ways as she learns to bike around as she can't drive around for example and use that as a stress reliever.

Emmy also had a complicated background with her dad and her uncle gives her old notebooks of his along with telling her about his love of Kurt Cobain of Nirvana hinting that maybe her dad's drinking was to do with depression possibly.

The book dealt with complex issues surrounding Emmy and her friend's lives. It was a great read and appreciative of all people and a celebration of acceptance.