TW// f-slur, homophobia, brief mention of accused pedophilia, brief mention of panphobia

I, like many other people apparently, requested this book without realizing it was the third book in a series. Luckily it didn’t impact my thoughts on this book. This book does a great job of giving refreshers of the previous books in the series, which is something that I wish more books would include.

I do have a few complaints about this book, but I still did find that I mostly enjoyed it. It was a nice escape from the real world and I lost track of time while I was reading it because I got that sucked in.

The writing style was confusing to say the least. It felt very middle grade bordering on children’s but the content matter was very young adult. I’ve been seeing this trend happening in lots of books recently and I hate it so much. Reading scenes with sexual content but feeling like I’m reading a children’s book makes me very uncomfortable. For anyone confused by what I’m saying, imagine reading a book with the writing style of the Percy Jackson series but with sexual content. It just doesn’t work for me but that may just be my personal preference.

Speaking of sexual content, the students thirsting over their teacher and describing her breasts in full detail made me so uncomfortable that I considered dnfing this book, which is something I rarely consider. This was much more explicit than just “the teacher has big boobs.” I was so disgusted by those scenes and I didn’t see the point of including them. Isn’t there a way to have a teen question their sexuality in ways that don’t include over-sexualizing a teacher?

Oh, and it’s worth noting that this book consists of snippets of life that make up a full school year of a high school student’s life. It took a while for me to get myself to just enjoy the moments for what they were instead of wondering where the plot was.

Even with it’s flaws, this book dealt with a lot of important themes that were written in a way that made it easier to process the hard topics. There’s talk of religion, questioning one’s sexuality, immigration, and financial hardships. These topics were incorporated smoothly in with the rest of the story and they brought up important conversations while also maintaining a lighthearted feel throughout the whole book. I really appreciated how this book presented multiple perspectives on some challenging topics. This book isn't pushing any sort of agenda. It just presents either side of controversial topics from the point of view of a teen who is navigating a world where not everyone agrees with each other.

I wouldn’t say that this is one of my favorite books ever but I did get a lot out of it and I don’t regret reading it. I think I may go back and read the previous books in this series at some point.

Thanks to the author and the publisher for the advance reading copy.

I find the writing quite easy to follow and the characters convincing.

However, there's lack of development in both the characters, especially the main character from which the narration is being told with.

I wish the voice of the character was more stronger and there was a little bit of humour now and then.

I feel the plot didn't progress my much.

But nevertheless, a good, simple story dealing with sexuality, coming out and handling homophobia.

This was not as enjoyable as I thought it was going to be and I requested thinking this was going to be more humorous than it was. I thought the main character was a little whiny but some of the observations and retorts were spot on and funny. Not what I thought but just ok. Also did not realize this was part of a series but it was a good stand alone book.

I liked the idea of comparing relationships to pizza but following though on the why was lost because the of whining of the main character. Disappointed.

Cannot recommend this one unfortunately, just did not grab me.

Thanks to Netgalley, Andy Roamer and Nine Star Press/Sun Fire for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Available: 3/15/21

This was SO funny at times and also pretty emotional and reliable and I really enjoyed reading this! I'm willing there to be more sequels in future because I just love this story so much.