If I Tell You was not the story I expected. From the moment I read the first chapter I new this was going to be a hard book to read but I just didn’t understand HOW hard!

Unfortunately, this is my third time trying to read this and I’m throwing in the towel @50%.

Firstly, the homophobia. I get it’s a small town, and I can see what the author was doing and absolutely, books focusing on teens who are stuck in places, such as this, when they’re different are just as important as any other book with happier representation. But fuck me. I just couldn’t stomach the use of slurs, every SINGLE person. Even the ones Alex felt she could be close to.

Secondly, Alex should never have to feel like she’s forced to come out and that is the message I was getting. She should be supported regardless and Phoenix disregarded this. For some people coming out is not an option and they are JUST as valid!

Thirdly, Phoenix herself was just horrible and she’s the LOVE INTEREST.

Nope. Nadda. The book is not for me.

This one just did not work for me. It's the typical romance plot issue where simple communication skills could fix everything. I was hoping for stronger LGBTQ representation. I will begrudgingly admit that it is a very quotable book. There are snippets and soundbytes that work very well.

If I Tell You by Alicia Tuckerman |book review |
fictiveescapes Book Reviews, Book Reviews December 31, 2019 1 Minute
This was one of the first books that I received through NetGalley and I thought that it was going to end up being the first one that I was going to have to mark as un-able to provide feedback for; but luckily Scribd has the ebook available to read for members. Let this be a lesson that adobe files should be read as soon as possible… and that books published in other countries may not be easy to find later on.



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The novel follows Alex Summers a young closeted lesbian in her final year of college (high school for us Americans) in the small town of Two Creeks, Australia. When a new girl named Phoenix moves to town… Alex begins to have to accept who she is and she begins to open up her parents and others around her for better and worse.

I enjoyed how the characters were written; they all sounded and reacted like real people. And I enjoyed coming across new Australian slang that I had never heard of before. Like esky, which is a cooler for holding drinks, and sunnies for sunglasses.

I do wish that this novel would have come with trigger warnings because there was a physical fight between parent and child and major character death at the very end.

This novel was hard to track down but very enjoyable. If you are able to find a copy it is well worth a read.

Thank you NetGalley for helping me find this novel.

Trigger warning: homophobia, slurs, child abuse, family breakdown, character death


I have very mixed feeling about this book.

I love the concept of an Australian, small-town story based on a lesbian MC. But so many other things in this book just weren't comfy for me.

The trope closeted-lesbian-falls-in-love-with-new-out-lesbian-in-town is not something I enjoy. This is a trope that just feels cliche, for lack a better word. It feels very storytell-y and not realistic in my view. And when you add in a very rushed romance with questionable relationship tones (I will discuss further in a bit) it just felt a bit ick to me.

The relationship between Alex and Phoenix... it felt very unbalanced. The pushiness from Phoenix about Alex coming out to friends and family, and even about performing on stage and sky-diving, all felt incredibly manipulative. At points it almost felt like a power play from Phoenix. There was very little consideration about Alex's circumstances from Phoenix which frustrated me to no end.

I have seen a lot of reviews discuss the overuse of homophobia in this book. This is something that I disagree with. As on #ownvoices LGBTQIA+ book, every coming out story should have the opportunity to be told in detail, including the details that hurt. ABSOLUTELY, this book should come with strong trigger warnings, because the discrimination is VERY clear and poignant. But I don't think the fact that it is hard to stomach is something that should result in erasure of this type of story-telling. This isn't a story for everyone in this regard, but it is a story that should be told.

In saying that, I did not like the fact that the entire scene with Justin and his sister felt very unfinished and untouched. On top of that, Justin DOES out Alex to his sister, and no matter how small this outing it should not have gone untouched like it did. The story doesn't present it as it is and is an act that should always be presented as not okay.

And then the ending. SIGH. I won't go into spoilery details but THIS STORY HAS BEEN DONE BEFORE. Okay, so it isn't a hetero couple and the details have been twerked but I am not the only one to have seen that ending before and to be honest it felt like a cop out ending.

I am not crossing Tuckerman off my list, there are things like the concept and the writing style that I really enjoyed. But overall this wasn't a book for me.

Nobody is more disappointed than me that I hated this.

It's the first LGBT YA book written by a Western Australian author. An author who grew up in rural New South Wales and now lives in the Swan Valley region of Perth with her wife and kids. An author I've had multiple opportunities to meet (but have always been busy, which I'm no longer annoyed about since the copy I bought was already signed and I've lost interest in meeting her after reading the book).

Yep, I'm incredibly sad about my feelings toward this book.

Alex has known she's a lesbian since she was fifteen, but for two years has kept it to herself. She lives in a small, rural NSW town, where she has a close relationship with her father, but not her overbearing mother who obsessively tries to convince her to be more feminine. She hangs out with her best friends Lin and Justin and loves to play the guitar. But her life changes when a new family moves to town, including out lesbian Phoenix.

I started off feeling really positive. The writing was gorgeous in the beginning, especially the descriptions of the landscape. I loved Lin, from the moment she said to Alex about Phoenix "How cool would it be to be friends with a lesbian?", reminding me of my friend who yelled "That's so cool!" and hugged me when I came out to her - hands-down the best coming out reaction I've ever gotten from a straight person.

My enthusiasm faded quickly. Here's a list of all my criticisms.

That coming out trope that I hate (1) (2) (3) (4): Not only does Phoenix constantly pressure Alex to come out, so do a bunch of straight characters who have no idea what it's like to be a teenage lesbian in a small rural homophobic town, whether this is Lin, Justin, Alex's music teacher who she's close with...Alex is consistently framed as a coward for not coming out and as someone in a similar situation, it's incredibly difficult to read. Tuckerman claims to be writing for LGBT youth in Australia, especially those living in rural areas, so it really infuriates me that she obviously thinks so many of her audience are cowards for staying closeted. I have absolutely no patience left for this sort of bullshit.

Examples:
- Lin is "pissed off" by Alex not coming out to her sooner
- Phoenix says her and Alex can never be together if Alex won't come out
- Alex does come out and claims it's on her own terms, but it seriously didn't feel like that was the reason
- Justin says Alex has lied to him by not coming out sooner
- Phoenix freaks out when she sees that Alex's mother has assaulted her, Alex tells her "None of this is your fault" and says that she's happy to be herself, despite the fact that she's been violently assaulted by her own mother and kicked out of home for coming out, WHICH PHOENIX FORCED AND PRESSURED HER TO DO

Other homophobia:
- Lin tells Alex "control yourself" when they're sharing a bed which is played as a joke. Idk about you but if a straight girl friend did that to me, in the past I would've cried and died, nowadays I would call them the fuck out.
- Justin outs Alex to his sister; not called out
- Justin's sister keys the d slur into Phoenix's car because she wanted Alex and Justin to be together. Phoenix rightly wants her brought to justice, but Alex convinces her "She's just a stupid kid who was trying to stick up for her brother". Phoenix protests "That stupid kid scratched the word d--e into my car and you think she should get off" but eventually gives in.

Racism: Tuckerman treats Lin's character horribly. This includes:
- jokes about Lin becoming a pr*stitute
- Lin: How come you've never hit on me? It's because I'm Asian, isn't it?
Alex: You're just not my type.
Lin: You're so racist. Asians are flexible.
- Alex thinks that being gay is harder than being Asian which is never called out.
- Lin can transform "from my sex-obsessed, gutter-mouthed best friend into the picture of modest Asian perfection"
- Of course Lin has stereotypically strict parents who want her to study medicine

Misogyny/sexual harassment: Justin and Phoenix's twin brother Van both treat Alex and Lin like shit and it's often framed as romantic, for example "Van addresses Lin's tits, which pleases her, and she rewards him with a shimmy". Justin is in love with Alex and at one point kisses her without consent, which is again framed as romantic.

Ableism/disability as a plot device: Van is an addict which is used for drama and no other reason. Alex's mother says she'd rather Alex be paralysed than gay. (view spoiler)

Fatphobia: Lin says "No one likes a fatty", not called out.

Cissexism/transphobia: Lin says "I like sausage too much to turn vagetarian", Justin describes trans people as "girls dressing like blokes", Lin says there's no chance of Alex and Phoenix getting pregnant. None of this is called out.

Sex shaming: Alex protests "I'll look like a sk*nk!" when Lin is helping her get dressed for sex. Not called out.

I could continue with other issues, like:
- the condescending way in Phoenix treats Alex and forces her to do things she doesn't want to = not a healthy relationship
- there's way too much insta-love and the idea of finding your soulmate as a teenager for my liking, in particular how Alex and Phoenix rush into sex after knowing each other for about a month
- Phoenix being the definition of a Manic Pixie Dream Girl
- the portrayal of Alex's homophobic and physically abusive mother
- the definition of a 'happy ending'
However, I'm exhausted from pouring out my emotions into this review, which got very personal for me. If this is what WA LGBT YA looks like then I'm sorry I ever asked for it.

Representation: Alex and Phoenix are both lesbians; the latter (view spoiler). Alex's best friend Lin is Vietnamese Australian. Phoenix's twin Van is an addict (alcohol, drugs and smoking).
Ownvoices/author info: Alicia Tuckerman is a lesbian.

Content warnings: major homophobia/lesbophobia including slurs (l*zzo, h slur, d slur, p**fter), jokes about how being euthanised is better than being gay in their small town, Phoenix tells Alex about experiencing gay-bashing in the past, the d slur is painted on Phoenix's fence and keyed into her car; alcohol; sexual harassment; smoking; q slur; fatphobia as above; bullying; wh*rephobia including slurs, cissexism/transphobia as above, anti-Asian racism as above; drugs; sex shaming; homophobic and physically abusive mother kicking Alex out of home; ableism as above; b slur; mentions of sex; terminal illness leading to death of loved one.

I loved that it was set in Australia. You don't get that setting in a lot of YA novels. My heart tore into pieces while reading this book. It is such a wonderful story. The pace of this story was incredibly fast which I liked a lot.

The homophobia and slurs were done over-the-top it was unnecessarily redundant. I believe it could have gotten the message across with less.

All in all this was a great read. The emotions while reading about Alex will stick with me for a long time. I just didn't like how it ended.

Okay. so, even though I gave this book 4/5 stars, I wish I could give it 3.5. Although this book was good, the lesbophobia really annoyed me and even though it only happened once the fact that the writer used fat-shaming in the book made me upset. I get that this book is not set in a city and its set more in the countryside instead but Lin, who's supposedly chill and mature saying "nobody likes a fatty" made me want to punch her in the face.
About the lesbophobia, I completely get it, it's the whole point of the book, for Alex to struggle through all of that and finally be able to be herself, I think it kind of threw me, simply because I wasn't expecting it. I should mention a TW for violence.

actual raiting: 2.5 stars

It's been a hot minute since I was so mad about a book as I am with this one. It hurts my soul, cause I wanted to love this book so much.

I had so so so many problems with this.

Let me start by saying that I'm a person who holdes grudges. So the fact that somehow Alex was able to get over all the things Justin said to her or the things her mother said and did. I don't understand. I just don't understand. There was still some tension between her and her mother at the end. But with Justin she was totally fine and I JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND.

And then we have the whole Phoenix situation. I'm just so so so SO SO SO mad.

Spoiler!!!! Gay people can die. I'm totally aware of the fact that they aren't magical creatures that are immortal. I am painfully aware of this, since so many storytellers (no matter what media) decide to kill the gays and I'm pretty much sick of this.

It's not even that I liked Phoenix that much. I mean, I truly loved her in the beginning but she got just way too much for me. I didn't paticular like the relationship between her and Alex. Everything was just way too frustrating for me. But at the end of the book, I just feel like Phoenix was used as a tool to get Alex out of her shell, to have her more open about who she is and what she wants to do. And then we got rid off Phoenix. I don't like that.

But I don't want to end the review without mentioning a few things that I actually liked.
- Lin. Hated her in the beginning but she ended up being my absolute favorite.
- Van. No wonder that guy was so messed up half of the book.
- Alex and her relationship with her father.
- Gilly.
- Phoenix' and Van's family.

I feel like I wanted to like this book more than I actually did. I have quite a few problems with this book that I won't get into in order to keep this review spoiler free. Just know that I has quite a few problematic element. The characters are hard to like and the plot and the worldbuilding came off as unrealistic at times. There was definitely too much to dislike for me.

UGH. My heart hurts. This was a wonderfully written book that ripped out my heart and stomped on it. As the mother of a bi child, it hurt me to read how homophobic people can be. I realize how lucky my daughter is to be born into a loving, accepting family and community. The relationship between Alicia and Pheonix is believable and touching. The end just about killed me though. It was hard for me to revisit the book to write my review. I would definitely recommend this book to others, I plan on buying a copy for my daughter.

is there a way to give it 6 out of 5 stars? or more?
also can someone tell my eyes to stop being waterfalls? everything's blurry

i loved this book. it's incredibly sad but i l o v e d it. it's almost 1am and here i am crying.

tw: homophobia (lots and lots, i don't recommend this book if you can't handle it), death, hospitals, blood

If I Tell You is a very heavy novel. For some reason, I assumed it would be a cute, fluffy f/f romance - perhaps the cover tricked me? Anyway, this book deals with some heavy topics: homophobia, use of slurs and child abuse; and I was definitely not prepared.

Unfortunately, I couldn't really connect with the characters, and that affected my enjoyment of the novel - especially for a character-driven story. Alex was a great character, but Phoenix was a bit much for me.

I couldn't get past the overt homophobia and use of slurs. I understand what this book was doing, and how homophobia is important for the plot of the novel, but good God, the slurs were WAY overused. Every time there was a character that was even a little bit homophobic, a slur was used. I just couldn't take it and it made me start to dislike the novel.

Alex is a pretty, popular girl in a small country town. She knows she is a lesbian and her plan is to finish High School and get out of town where she can come out, away from the conservative culture she lives in. And then enters Phoenix a new girl in town who wears the tag of lesbian with pride.
I think the author has produced a mighty fine book covering the fear of being different, of being ostracised, of facing parents and friends reactions and taking pride in who you are.
The book also does a good job of covering the various reactions to Alex's sexuality which comprises the expected negativity but surprisingly a lot of support. There is also a well handled tragedy which adds another dimension to a well written story full of interesting characters - my favourite was Lin, Alex's best friend, born in Australia to Vietnamese parents she adds another storyline that celebrates diversity.

Trigger warning: Child abuse, racial slur, homophobia, stereotyping. Read with caution*

~ I don’t know where to begin, it was definitely a heavy read. It’s very much on the contrary of what the book cover suggests.

~ The homophobia and slurs were done over-the-top it was unnecessarily redundant.

~ Where was Lin, Alex’s BFF when this incident with her mother occurred?

~ I find the world building being too antagonizing reflecting as unrealistic, way too unrealistic.

~ Justin was never called out. WHY?

~ I also find the twist with Phoenix as being ableist. Please read with caution. I cannot stress it enough.

~ The argument of staying away and studying abroad, in this scene both Alex was pointing out about Phoenix, that she can do whatever because she has the money to do so. And Phoenix just brushes it off. She is privileged, you acknowledge it.

~ The narration was easy to flow. No problem there.

~ The first half of the book was heartfelt, the establishment of the MC was clear. I empathize with her. Her pain was my pain. Then the other half was ruined for me.

~ I like queer representation.

~ We get to see Lin a Vietnamese SC!

~ The development of the SCs are great, they’re learning and accepting.

~ The depth of each individual is visible throughout the book which is great.

When I started reading this book, the first thing that popped into my mind was that this could be to other young teens what 'Annie on my Mind' was for me.

This an extremely compelling read, which I finished in one sitting. I love that Alex and Phoenix's feelings are not written off as a teenage romance but they are also not given the maturity of adults. The reader is taken on a rollercoaster of emotions with them and I can honestly say that I sat for a good 30 minutes and sobbed like an overgrown baby.( So happy I was in the comfort of my home!)

I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a good YA romance but just be ready for the tears.

This book was all about our main character, Alex, coming to terms with the fact that she is a lesbian, even though being one in her house and in her home town is kind of frowned upon. No one knows and even Alex herself is having a hard time dealing with it, however when a new girl moves next door to her the two connect instantly. The hard part now is while things might be going well for Alex, no one knows that she is a lesbian and coming out in her small town is risky. So does she follow her heart of stick to what she knows is the safer bet? I really enjoyed this book because it took a serious situation that a lot of people go through and put a young adult spin to it. It wasn't to seriously written that things go dark and complicated. I really liked the way it was written, and I really liked the main character. She was trying to be listen to who she was without hurting those around her. Nice read and I think that it is one that should be read by lots of people especially young girls.
Man right when you as a reader think that Alex's life can't get any worse boom bomb shell drops. Once I started reading this one I couldn't stop until I saw how it finished and I'm glad I did. Great story. While their romance was complex it was beautiful to see how easy they made it and how pure their love was. I can't even describe how the author managed to show it but it was beautiful. A romance that will stay with you for a while after you read it. I think that the ending was the most powerful part of the whole thing. All in all I loved this story

Loved this book until the ending. Then it made me want to throw the book against the wall. Not sure if this was the author’s intention but I think when any book elicits a strong reaction from the reader, it’s achieved something special. Living in the boonies of small town Australia, Alex decides it’s time to come out to the world. A big part of her decision is when she meets Phoenix, the new girl in town who looks like the poster child for a big city, tattooed, young Lesbian. But ultimately, it’s Phoenix’s free spirit and loving heart that capture Alex and give her the final push to face family and friends with her truth. The writing was engaging, although I kept having to look up Aussie words that I had no clue about, and the supporting characters were nicely drawn. Now about the ending, it did feel a little Hallmarky but that was more the author’s decision than a knock on the story. Over all, a very good book.

I want to thank Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

Our story takes place in a small town in Australia. Everyone knows each other and the family ties have gone back for generations. Our main character, Alex, has been in the closet since she was 13 when she discovered she liked girls. She stays in the closet due to her homophobic mother and the conservative nature of her town. Then comes along Phoenix, the daughter of a rock star and very liberal family. She immediately catches Alex’s eyes and then the story takes off

*Warning* There are a lot of homophobic slurs in this book which I was not expecting. I was very much expecting a fluffy contemporary but the book deals with a lot of darker plots.

I really enjoyed the diversity in this book, not just the LGBT representation, but also the racial diversity as well. Alex’s best friend, Linn, is Asian and she discusses the issues surrounding people

One issue I had with this book is that Phoenix (and even Linn) is continuously pressuring Alex to come out. Phoenix will get angry when Alex got scared about. No one should ever feel pressured to come out, even by his or her own significant other.

I also did not feel any emotional connection to Alex or Phoenix until the end when Phoenix actually died. I could not feel the relationship and quite honestly felt as if the only reason they were dating is because they were the only two lesbian’s in the town. There was no connection or anything that made me want them to be together. Half the time I was extremely annoyed with Phoenix’s nonchalant attitude. She didn’t care where she ended up in a year and kept trying to push her plans onto Alex. I just couldn’t understand where she was coming from and felt as if both girls were in love way too fast. I will say that the ending made me feel something for the two, but I really was not that sad the Phoenix was gone.

For me, I just didn't connect with the characters or the writing. Nothing against this book, just not for me.

We need more books like this for girls out there finding out who they are. I loved the writing, the characters and this sweet story.