Adorable.

This story has our young Jay living the majority of his life in a small Washington town as the only out gay person. Not the only out gay teen boy, but only gay person. He fantasizes about what his life would be like if there were other gay people in his circle, so as the hyper organized list maker he is (I can relate), he makes what amounts to a to-do list of things, an agenda, he feels are important as part of an openly gay identity.

Quickly into the book, Jay's family gets to move to the big city of Seattle, where hopefully he'll get to start checking items off his

I'm sure you can imagine what happens when someone makes a list of super top secret goals. Humiliation? Yes. Hurt feelings? Yes. Misunderstandings? Yes.

I love seeing this type of own voices story for young adults. This is a story that incorporates both joy and challenges of being an LGBTQ teen, and in general navigating the teenage experience.

Pros: I loved the narrator, and in general the wide range of characters and representation in this story was fantastic. The setting (I'm a sucker for Seattle stories) and the cover pulled me in, and largely did not lie about whether or not I was going to enjoy this story! Although I wasn't always 100% there in Jay's choices, I did appreciate the honest and open way that he looked at what he did, and how he messed things up along the way and his work to try to repair relationships. It's a very relatable story, he's living a sort of fantasy life, and he gets carried away.

Cons: A complaint I frequently have with YA/Teen books is parents that just aren't around at all. In this case, his parents felt as if they were generally supportive, without providing any real support. This did improve towards the end of the book, and there were a few scenes where they did try to help with certain things. But there were a number of times when I felt as if an adult presence to provide a bit of guidance on relationships would have self-corrected. I realize a lot of kids don't have this, and there's less drama if someone sets you on a right path, but it was a frustration.

Overall, there's a lot of joy in this story, which made it really fun to read. And it makes it a great addition to LGBTQ literature available for young people.

As a result of my various committee appointments and commitments I am unable to disclose my personal thoughts on this title at this time. Please see my star rating for a general overview of how I felt about this title. Additionally, you may check my GoodReads for additional information on what thoughts I’m able to share publicly. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to read this and any other titles you are in charge of.

I really enjoyed reading this book and getting to know Jay. I saw a LOT of this plot coming...but I think that's okay because the characters are so great. Max is amazing! We need more genderqueer characters like Max. He's a good friend. He's not perfect. He has his own character arc that isn't just about his gender identity. He's a real person.

And so is Jay. He makes many mistakes, but that's okay. He grows a lot in a very short period of time.

I also really appreciate the sex-positive message of this book.

I am really looking forward to June's other books!

A phenomenal YA, Jay’s Gay Agenda is honest, heartfelt, and funny. Jason June has crafted an engaging and vibrant cast of characters that readers will be rooting for. Queer readers will especially appreciate and enjoy a story focused on their joy. Highly recommended.

Feeling like the only gay student for miles isn't easy or fun for Jay, but when his biggest wish is granted and he moves to Seattle he can finally be his true self and connect with other people like him. Jay is ready for roman and finding his tribe, but having the opportunity to live and love like any other teen comes with the challenges that all young people face as they grow up. Jay leaves his small town and lifelong best friend, Lu, to move to Seattle where he hopes to have all of his gay firsts, first kiss with a guy , losing his virginity, joining a GSA and ultimately finding love. Theres friendship drama, relationship drama and all the challenges that go along with making it through high school.
This book really represented the struggles of growing up gay in a small town. Usually in books its not until the character goes away to college that they escape their small town life and get to explore their sexuality, but this book played out that storyline while Jay was still in high school and going through the struggles that go along with growing up as well. This book would be a good read for a teen struggling with coming to terms with living their most authentic life and it shows that even when you have the opportunity to live the life you want there are still learning curves and bumps in the road along the way.

Such an entertaining read! I loved Jay's portrayal, and honestly, I kinda loved how he was a bit of a disaster. This is an easy read too, and it was a lot of fun getting to know Jay and his world.

Jay is a high-school senior and the only openly gay kid in his small Northwestern town. He's frustrated that everyone around him has experienced so many "firsts," but he hasn't even held a guy's hand. When his mom's job transfers her to Seattle, Jay suddenly finds the vibrant gay community he's been missing and sets out to check various firsts off a list -- his "gay agenda." But Jay soon finds himself torn between his life in Seattle and the people he left behind... and threatening to hurt both his old and new friends as a result.

JAY'S GAY AGENDA is a sweet, funny story that's extremely well-told. June portrays an experience that will be familiar to any gay person who grew up in a town without a large LGBTQ+ population -- the thrill of finally being around other queer people! the chance to finally date and hook up! -- and makes it feel fresh and uniquely 2021. (June even throws in a couple of clever, backward-looking references to COVID in one of the most organic ways that I've seen fiction handle the events of the past year.)

More than anything, I appreciated that Jay was allowed to make real mistakes and that his dilemmas were always authentic and compelling. He's a character operating at the height of his intelligence, and when he screws up, you may be yelling at him not to do something, but you always understand WHY he's doing it. He finds himself stuck in some genuinely no-win situations.

Likewise, the two objects of his affection (Albert and Tony) are both depicted in a way that takes you back to the heady rush of lust and first love. It's the rare book where the flirting is so vivid, funny and specific that you genuinely *believe* it would cause two people to fall for each other.

In the subplots, Jay's genderqueer best friend, Max, who is at once confident and vulnerable -- a character type we haven't seen enough in YA lit -- gets his own compelling relationship story. And Jay's other best friend, Lu, finds her family struggling with poverty in a very real way that we also don't get enough of in literature (without the struggle ever turning so bleak that the book loses its fundamental optimism).

My only complaint of the book is the number of times Jay's central list is reprinted, in its entirety, as various items are modified or crossed off. From a clarity/readability standpoint, it feels like it would've made more sense to simply reprint specific items as they were referenced. But that's obviously a minor critique.

Bottom line: JAY'S GAY AGENDA is a charming, fresh story that's very much worth reading.

Disclaimer: I got this ARC in exchange for an honest review from @NetGalley.

Perfect for fans of Love, Simon, Love, Victor, and Becky Albertalli. This is a heartfelt coming of age story as Jay learns about who he wants to date and the kind of relationship he wants to have. This book talks about sex in a very candid way. I love reading about how Jay finally feels like he belongs and is in a welcoming place. He also deals with his first heartbreak. I teared up during certain chapters!

This is a fun book and an easy read. This is the kind of story teens are used to seeing from a straight perspective - (usually) a girl moves to a new town and wants to get a boyfriend and meet new people. It's fun seeing this from Jay's perspective and watching him engage with gay culture and other gay people for the first time.

“At this stage in your life, you’re supposed to be finding out who you are.”

I’ve been looking forward to Jay’s Gay Agenda for M O N T H S! As soon as I saw the cover, I KNEW I had to have it (insert *gimme* gif here).

Let me start off by saying it makes my heart SO happy to know there are diverse LGBTQ+ sex-positive novels being published. Oh, to have this kind of media when I was a teenager! And this story, the story of being open and being able to explore without judgment... it’s a beautiful thing!

The characters are fantastic, and you can’t help but love Jay and Max, and Albert is just a little too perfect (which means you love him and want him to be real). All of the little hints towards Jay’s love of statistics kept me smiling throughout the story; I love when a characters quirks are ingrained throughout and make you feel like you’ve really gotten to know the protagonist!

Although the characters were great and the story was good, it wasn’t as exciting as I had hoped for. It’s still a great read, and I would recommend it in a heartbeat! But it’s not something new. It’s a story many of us have read before that features new characters.

Overall, it was a win! There were some plot points that had me pulling my hair in frustration, but that can sometimes be a good thing (depending on who you are as a reader). Plus, you may love the plot points that irritated me! Personal preferences are a thing, you know. 😉 I will say this: you definitely want to grab it when it comes out this summer!

This book captures the tropes of a YA RomCom yet takes stereotypical high school romances and queer characters and puts a new twist on the plot The world through Jay’s eyes is fast-paced, filled with wonder, and of course lists. The narrative moves quick quickly and the dialogue is absolutely perfect. The reader can feel the emotional roller coaster in each line and can enjoy the joys and fears along with the characters. There are definitely those moments where you want to yell at the characters for saying something they’d regret or making a choice that will come back to haunt them. It’s great for teen readers to see that these situations are real and can be destigmatized (Sorry, that was so vague. I am avoiding any spoilers!)

While the plot is a little predictable (which is not a bad thing), it was exciting to see queer characters fall in love, make mistakes, fight, cry, laugh, and just live. It’s not a coming out story and the plot doesn’t focus on characters coming to terms with homosexuality. Jay tries a little hard to find a queer community in which to belong and along the way finds exactly where he needs to be. The authentic treatment of dating and sex in LGBTQ novels is rare and this novel does an excellent job (even including parental oversight).

I highly recommend this book because it wholly embraces a variety of queer and racial identities. It names stereotypes and then shows the reader how one can think differently. Jay may be the main character, but his friends and family are absolutely necessary to the story making sense. And the agendas are just amazing to follow and see how Jay adjusts as his priorities. I’d love to follow hear more from Jay, Albert, Max, and Lu to hear what they are up to next.

2.5 stars, rounded up to 3 because math

After finishing this book, I'm feeling very, very conflicted about it. On one hand, those who identify as LGBTQA definitely deserve a book that is a rom com that resembles thousands of heteronormative books that feature almost the same plot. On the other hand, I feel like they deserve something/someone better than Jay.

This is a common trend in my reviews: I'm not a huge fan of books where the only reason the plot is able to move forward is because the protagonist is almost a pathological liar. And this book definitely only moves forward because the protagonist lies to just about everyone and everything. And then gets mad and upset when all his lies collapse. And, because YA/new adult books have to be tied up with a pretty bow, the protagonist is forgiven by friends/loved ones when he really shouldn't have been.

There's just something about Jay that was inherently unlikable to me. He's just unsympathetic; every problem in the book is his fault and it takes an extremely long time for him to realize that. He just keeps doing dumb shit and, after a while, it gets very annoying. Jay is supposed to be this super smart character, but he truly is just a dumb ass who thinks only with his penis. Additionally, after he fucks over the other characters multiple times, he is forgiven way too easily.

There's also the fact that the author mentions COVID-19 (but at random times? It's so inconsistent). Which will date the book so quick. Also, people read for escapism so I definitely could have done without random reminders that COVID is a thing. I like how Jay complains about people being out and doing things in the time of COVID, but then hooks up with a random person?

On the other hand, I absolutely adored Jay's parents. I would love to read a whole book about them and the shenanigans they have lived through. Jay's dad probably was the only reason I kept reading; I wanted more scenes between him and Jay.

I know people are going to love this book. And they should. There are thousands versions of this book that exist for the straights, so it's beyond time that the gays get their version. I just... wish it was a better version.

Jay's Gay Agenda is the embodiment of what queer literature created by queer authors looks like. Jason June creates a sex-positive and affirming story of a gay teen who leaves his rural home of 17 years to the more queer-populated city of Seattle. Along the way, Jay meets a football team that participates in costuming clubs, exciting social situations, and attempts to stay in touch with his best friend back home. The story is enhanced by Jay's unique voice in the story, with his quirks clearly demonstrated in the first person. The other characters who are queer are also unapologetically so, and stereotyping within the community is discussed and addressed in the story. Jay is figuring out where and how he fits in with the world around him, just like the other characters in this story. Simply put: this is a story many queer people would have liked to have as a teenager.

My biggest problems with this book comes down to lack of content warnings before the story and lack of communication between characters within it. This is another book that's problems could be mostly (if not entirely resolved) from honest communication from the start, rather than assumptions. In the beginning of the story, Jay comes off as very self-centered. This is brought up by other characters, and Jay does learn from his mistakes. The only issue is that
Spoiler
Jay's mistakes include infidelity, lying, and then getting upset when the truth slips out
. At times, Jay's decisions can be made out of jealousy rather than good will, such as
Spoiler
when Jay decides not to help out his childhood best friend by entering in his old school's homecoming contest because she was originally going to go with her boyfriend
. Although these decisions did bother me while reading the story, I strongly feel that characters--especially diverse ones--should be allowed to make mistakes and grow from them as long as those mistakes are appropriately resolved.

Unlike other queer and upcoming books I've read this year, Jay's flaws are fully addressed in the story. By the end of the book, Jay is able to take full responsibility for his actions and also appropriately apologize for them. The characters which are affected hear his apology and respond realistically. My personal feelings towards stories where poor communication drives the drama aside, the story is mostly well done. The only other (minor) criticism I have for the book was certain expressions and dialogue seemed a little too forced, as though the author was making assumptions on how Gen Z students actually talk to each other. This was very apparent when
Spoiler
the characters acted out or referenced IPhone emojis
.

Overall, Jay's Gay Agenda is a great addition to the 2021 queer YA line-up. Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins Publishers for letting me have an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review. If you are interested in picking up this book, make sure to preorder or go to your local bookstore on June 1st, 2021.

I loved this book. I can never write a book review as well as I can say it, so let me just say, “gay teens like myself would have loved this book when we were growing up, and I know the gay teens that I work with now will love it, too. It’s messy, emotional, funny, and really charming and Jay learns a lot along the way. My “Gay Agenda” was definitely something similar, and I can’t say I wouldn’t have made many of the mistakes he did.”

(But I’m definitely more Max in this entire book.)

Content warning for this novel: cheating

Jay's Gay Agenda is a YA rom-com following a teenager who leaves his small town for a big city. His hometown has absolutely no out gay people - literally none. Jay has been searching all his life for his perfect teen rom-com moment that never came; this all changes when his parents announce that they're moving to Seattle. In Seattle, Jay can meet real life gays! He makes a bucket list full of things he wants to do with his newfound gay surroundings: kiss a boy, hold hands with a boy on the first date, have sex with a boy, etc. 
I'm from a small town myself, so I immediately identified with Jay's story. The differences between the small town I grew up in and the city I live in now are vast, and rural spaces can be quite stifling for queer youth, so I immediately felt for Jay's character. 

My problems with this story lie not with the story itself, but with the writing. The writing felt very cartoonish, like somebody was trying to imagine what being a teenager in the 2020's was like, and ended up with a very warped mess of teenage references that real teenagers would never say or do. This surrealism was very cringy to read at times, which is an ultimate turn-off for contemporaries for me. 

I find myself wishing that this novel was longer, so we could expand on the identity of Jay's new best friend Max. Max identifies as genderqueer, and uses both he/him and she/her pronouns, however max is only ever referred to with he/him pronouns in the book. Aspects of Max's genderqueer identity are prominent throughout he book, like her love of makeup and fashion, however his genderqueer identity is only once stated at the beginning of the book, then all nuance with Max's character is forgotten.

Spoiler ahead: nuanced discussion of the cheating content warning
As for the content warning of cheating, our main character, while not in a defined relationship with his main love interest, has sex with another character multiple times without the love interest's knowledge or consent. While their relationship was not yet official, many, myself included, would consider this cheating. If cheating is a hard no for you, you may want to skip this book.
Spoiler end

If you, like me, are a person who has a desire to consume all queer media available, I would recommend you read this book. it will give you queer feels, and overall isn't a waste of time. However, if you're a person who is more selective with your book choices, I wouldn't recommend this book.

I usually don't enjoy YA, but this book has changed my mind. I was laughing out loud and crying right alongside Jay. Every character was so real and endearing and raw and messy that I was constantly reminded of my own experiences and friends. Jay wasn't the perfect protagonist; he was awkward and confused and flawed and made lots of stupid choices, but that was what made him so relatable. I also loved that the author chose to not focus on the "typical" LGBTQ YA conflicts of sexuality and homophobia, and instead depicted a loving and supportive family and friends, while touching on very relevant and often overlooked topics both within the LGBTQ community and beyond, such as the hyper sexualization of gay culture, hookup culture, gender identity, the challenge of balancing romance, friendship, and life/career, and Albert's struggle as a gay Asian man struggling to defy the stereotypes of Asian men being "not sexy." This is definitely a book about queerness, but also about love and friendship and figuring out who you are when the world wants to tell you who to be. A fun, fast, heartwarming read.

I received this ARC from NetGalley. I recommend this book, with some caveats. I really wanted to love this book, and parts of it really are hilarious, but it eventually wore on me. Did I need to see Jay's revised Gay Agenda every single chapter? No. It's a device that got old. Jay is constantly talking about his Gay Agenda, and he's not actually doing much otherwise. I want him to be a more fully formed character. If you are looking for gay male leads that are funny teenagers like Jay, I prefer ones with more depth like from Darius The Great Is Not Okay or What If It's Us. This book is definitely readable, and I know many teenagers who would enjoy it, but I also know that they could set it down and walk away, and then pick it up months later without having missed a beat. It's not one that you HAVE to finish. Is that a weird criteria that I have for a book? I guess I'm just picky because I want characters--gay, straight, non-binary, etc.--to be real and complicated, not just one thing. I want that for Jay.

This was a solid 3 stars for me. I definitely appreciate the premise - it’s not another coming out story, but it’s still a fun exploration of various expressions of queer identities. Jay isn’t always a likable narrator, but he is a teenager trying to figure out how to fit in - or not to fit in at high school. Jay has been in the single gay kid in his town for his entire life, and now has to explore his sexuality with the help of a queer-friendly crowd in a new city. However, his actual actions are often clouded by the narration that made him sound even younger than he is. This may be an issue that’s minor in a hard copy, but the titular agenda, modified and rewritten multiple times throughout the novel, takes up way too much e-book page space than it should and I ended up skimming over it most times. Overall, it’s definitely a fun read, just not the best fit for me.

Rare representation of a rural queer character—although Jay spends most of the book having just moved to a city (finally!). Jay navigates new new options, new friends, old friends, and all the complications between in this lustful but loving read. A voice that jumps off the page.