Rep: gay mc, achillean li, lesbian sc

This was a decent book. It was ok but not my fav. It was kinda long and it could’ve probably been trimmed down a bit, as I felt it dragged on at some points. I thought I would have enjoyed this a bit more.

Dylan’s family and friends are super supportive of him and loving. He is already out as gay, so he’s not still discovering himself. He is also the only out kid at school though and did have to deal some homophobic people a few times.

I found Jordan trusted Dylan very fast. Like the 2nd time he sees Dylan, he explains his whole situation and his powers, then tells him not to tell anyone because he’s in danger. Why would he even bother telling a stranger all this when his life is on the line? Seems weird but ok.

I don’t like that we never learned how Jordan’s power spread to Dylan?? They just didn’t explain it. Why just Dylan? Why not other people as well? Like maybe his aunt? And how exactly does it spread to other people?? Also how did Dylan’s manifest a bit differently?

It took Dylan soo long to tell his friends what was going on. He finally did in the last few chapters. It felt like the ending was a bit rushed. So much happened in so little time. I was hoping we’d see more people with powers, cuz Dylan couldn’t have been the only one.

They really had a Harry Potter reference. In 2022. That was… a choice. No new books coming out now, especially queer ones, should be referencing Harry Potter.

The narrator was good. I also like the cover.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an audio ARC of this book.

Thank you to the publishers, author and NetGalley for the free copy of this audiobook.

I was very up and down in my opinion of this- it seemed like I would really enjoy it at first, then it started to annoy me. It seems like it would be a cool premise, but didn't really set the right tone for me. The narrator did a good job! It just felt a little too dramatic high school for me.

I really thought I would love this book, but it fell short. I wasn’t a fan of the protagonist and there were a lot of things that just didn’t make sense. I also felt like it was a little out of touch with queer folk.

The whole time I was reading this I kept thinking “This sounds so much like one of the bad teen action movies I watched when I was younger.” Then, I googled it to send a screenshot of the plot summary to my friend, and found out two very interesting things. 1) It was published by Disney Publishing. 2) A week after the publication day, it was revealed that Disney+ was making a movie/series out of it.

So, it is exactly what I thought it was, a bad teen action movie. And if you liked the cheesy teen action movies, I would recommend waiting for the release of this one rather than reading this book.

The characters are forced and their relationships are rushed. It’s very insta-love feeling, as well as instant-“trust you with my deepest secrets, like why I’m running from the some scientist force, despite having met you a day ago.” The action is dull and predictable, things are either way under explained, with scenes passing by in a rush, or way over explained to the point where you’re like “okay I get it.” I never got a grasp on the pacing, never settled into the story. I didn’t care about the characters, because besides their outward conflicts there wasn’t any real dimension to them, or if there was an interesting detail it was shoved in your face about why it’s a conflict. Honestly, to me it just feels like Disney wanted to buy out the plot, and a book that could’ve had potential with more revision and time, was wasted.

This book had all of my favorite aspects in it, so I thought I was going to love it. However, I could only suspend my disbelief so much. Usually I have no problem with books where crazy things happen, and in this case it wasn’t even the fantastical aspects I had a problem believing. The protagonist made such wild decisions which did not make sense to me. At one point he’s keeping a secret from the only other person that could help and already knows about the situation, for no reason. Also, we almost never see Dylan and Jordan interact outside of talking about the powers, so their relationship feels extremely shallow. Because of that, Dylan’s all-consuming crush comes off very one dimensional. There were also some logistical problems with how the power transfers that I just could not wrap my mind around, and we’re never really given an explanation. The narrator does a good job at bringing some life to the characters, and I don’t think I would have finished the book if I weren’t listening to the audiobook form. For me, this was a 1.5/5.

I received a copy of this audiobook free from Netgalley and Disney Audiobooks in exchange for an honest review.

I just ... Didn't really get it? Also the HP reference really threw me 😬😬 its way beyond time that those kinda references got edited out, especially when this book isn't even out yet! *Especially* a queer book! That really peeved me. There was a lot of potential here but it fell WAY short and there was far too little explanation/buildup of what was actually happening, way too much focus on the MC's friends.

Dylan is the only out kid at his school and his only friends are the two girls he's been friends with forever. His family supports him and is charmingly loving. He's fine with his life and thinks it's pretty good. Then he meets handsome Jordan in an explosive manner and his obsession begins. Lucky for him, Jordan is just as obsessed and they can't seem to keep away from each other despite Jordan's little problem of setting things on fire. Thus begins a twisty tale of young love, shady corporations, and a young man learning to speak up for what he wants and opening up to those around him.

This one had the potential to be great because it has such a great cast of characters and a twisty plot that kept me interested from beginning to end. However, I had moments when Dylan's downright obsession with Jordan and how perfect he sees him as were just too much. I get that it's a first true love story and teenage-heightened emotions come into play, but I kept rolling my eyes and wanting to tell Dylan that he was perfectly capable of existing as an individual. Which is one of the reasons why I love his best friends so much, as one of them calls him on it towards the end and I was cheering for someone finally telling him like it is.

Andrew Gibson does a fantastic job of narrating this, often giving just the right emotion to each line to get the point perfectly across and help the reader be right there in the moment with Dylan and his friends.

Happy thanks to NetGalley and Disney Audiobooks for the great listen!

A gay school romance with superhero powers and an evil corporation to unmask? Fun!
Except it wasn't. The content matter of the book is young adult (including lots of underage drinking), but the writing style is middle grade at best. It is superficial and not terribly believable (a teenager can call a press conference, produce completely made up "proof," and no one questions any of it?). Dillon is annoyingly self-absorbed, and he and his friends are cruelly critical of other people. Toss in way too many descriptions of teenage boys being sweaty enough to coat surfaces in liquid, and I was ready to gag.
I suspect this book will work much better for young boys who love superhero stories than it did for me.

This book has a promising premise and I really wanted to like it, but for me the story just fell flat. While I applaud the LGBTQ characters and the GSA storyline, there was just too much crammed into this book. There were just too many storylines to follow and they all seemed to overshadow each other.

While this had a very good premise, I wasn't as captivated as I thought and was bothered by a few elements. Sadly too many little things made me not like it. The narration was done well, though.

** I was provided an advanced listening copy from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for honest review.**

Actual rating: 3.5

Brian Zepka's The Temperature of Me and You is a young adult coming-of-age boy-meets-boy kind of story. It is everything you could hope from that description, plus if Jordan accidentally explodes ice cream cups just by touching them then, really, that's just between him and the cup. Readers follow Dylan, your average 16 year old who is just trying to navigate being gay in the suburbs along with high school and a part time job. Enter Jordan who is obviously hot, but also runs a cool 110 degrees Fahrenheit body temperature. When Jordan and Dylan choose to get to know each other better, sparks fly as Dylan is suddenly coughing flames.

Audiobook narrator Andrew Gibson really adds to the reading experience. His tone is warm and pleasant to listen to while being utterly appropriate for students of high school age. I was happy to find that the casting fit so well, as I have encountered several audiobooks in the past where this was not this case and it was distracting. Gibson also voices each character in a way that was unique enough to determine who was speaking without falling into using squeaky voices for female characters.

Zepka was bold in his choice to balance ordinary high school drama of friendships and dating and high school politicking against scifi superpowers and a corporation to oppose. By choosing to keep everything relatively surface level, Zepka was successful in doing so. That is not to say that characters were poorly developed, but that there was no delving too far down any one rabbit hole. I was grateful to see that Zepka addressed the common effects that dating as a young person can have on friendships and the importance of maintaining balance in all interpersonal relationships.

Zepka also kept his writing perfectly appropriate for his target audience, with the romance being present but not at all approaching the boundary into new adult/adult.

Overall, I found this to be a fun and entertaining read and would recommend both the novel and the audiobook for anyone looking for a lighthearted queer contemporary with scifi flair.

I really wanted to like this! It's an interesting premise, I mostly liked the characters, but it just didn't do it for me.
This is a debut novel, and you can kind of tell by the writing. I don't want to sound snobbish, but it just didn't feel very polished. There were also lots of inconsistencies, that probably should have been caught beforehand, and maybe were, seeing as this is an ARC. I hope they were caught and corrected! For example, the MC walks to his boyfriend's house, drops something off, turns to go and hops on his bike. Uhhh... How did the bike get there? Then, when the evil corporation is after Dylan (MC) and Jordan (BF), and Jordan takes off, most of the time he has just run away, but then other times it seems like he's been kidnapped and is being held at the evil corporation's offices. Lots of things like that throughout the book.
I also didn't like that they never actually explain WTF is going on. So, to start with Jordan has these awesome powers because apparently his body is mostly made of hydrogen instead of oxygen, making him super flammable. This occurred because of an accident and he has escaped from the evil corporation that was doing tests on him (and who were involved in the accident). Then he starts dating Dylan and all of a sudden Dylan is also flammable and can fly (because H2 is lighter than oxygen, right?). And that is never explained. How was Jordan able to pass his power on to Dylan? How is this power even possible? What the heck happened in the accident? The group of spunky teens burn down the big evil corporation's office, so apparently everyone is safe now! Jordan comes back because apparently it's safe, and the end.
There's also quite a bit of homophobia that I feel is kind of unnecessary. It's the whole 'I'm an abusive homophobe because I'm secretly gay' thing. Just, why? The bully could have been effectively awful without being homophobic.
So, I really wanted to like this, but I just didn't.

Well this was a ride and I wish I could say that it was a good one but I am not a fan. This book had some interesting qualities and a couple redeeming characters, but as a whole it has a lot of problematic things happening.

So this whole book is focused on our MC Dylan who is gay and never had a boyfriend and during one night at his Dairy Queen shift, a cute boy walks in after closing, orders ice cream and proceeds to blow it up with his hand. When Dylan chases after him and touches his shoulder or something, his hand gets burned. Then despite being told to stay away and not follow, Dylan proceeds to low key stalk this boy.

Anyway, that's not really my issue with the book. This book wanted to be a cross between The Extraordinaries by TJ Klune and The Bright Sessions by Lauren Shippen. It tried to have a queer MC who developed some sort of superpower and then has to fight off a villain and it just didn't work. It is somehow super rushed and super slow at the same time. The details of the villain of the story don't match up and there isn't enough background to really understand what's happening besides the most basic of facts.

Let's get to the actual problematic moments and not just my subjective dislike of this book.

The Harry Potter reference. Are you freaking kidding me. In a queer book published in 2022! This is unacceptable.

The casual sexism and misogyny. Our MC has two girl best friends and I feel like the author tried to use that to offset the constant undertone of misogyny from this book. A couple instances are the continuing use of the word "hoes" to describe Catholic school girls, the villainization of the cheer coach who is older and apparently smelly and fat. The coach who they all make fun of for eating lean cuisines when they obviously don't work and the connection between being mean and being unhygienic and fat is a bad freaking look. Can we stop being fatphobic please? Then there is the fact that the only other queer character in this book besides are two seemingly wonderful gay boy MC and LI, is a bitchy mean girl. I mean sure, glorify gay boys and vilify lesbians. Sounds cool 🙄

Then there's the matter of the GSA. Can we please stop calling these gay straight alliances? Have we not evolved past this point? I was told a while ago that most places are now calling these gender and sexuality groups instead. I can't remember if the term is alliance or something else for the A but the whole premise is that it is more than just gay and straight and that it is about gender and sexuality as spectrums. Then within that group, a group full of allies, the faculty advisor introduces himself with " male pronouns " and no one corrects him. What the fuck? There's no such thing as male pronouns. Just say he/him if that's what you mean.

I found myself distracted by the small problematic moments and ultimately it caused me to dislike this story in its entirety. It's could have been a decent book, but it actually is one to avoid in my opinion.

This book is a sci-fi/superpower YA MM romance. I really liked it! I am classically skeptical about reading YA but my doubts were misplaced on this one. It was great. The way the book ends is a resolution to the story but it’s also open enough that he could totally write a second book. I would definitely read it if he did!
I listened to the audiobook and the narrator was great. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advance copy! This book already was released earlier this week so it’s available if this sounds like your thing. I would definitely recommend it!
This will be posted on Instagram as well.