DNF @ 41%. This book is trying to be a heartfelt exploration of sexual assault and finding your queer identity. It frankly fails at both. Izzie and Lara are both insufferable, the portrayals of polyamory are unrealistic (at best), and the young-military-marriage-for-benefits storyline fails to explore the harm of that trope. Overall, could not force myself to finish it. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the free advance copy.

This book was amazing. It did so much while being entertaining to read. I loved all of the characters, and they felt like real people. They felt like people I knew or could have known. I think the book tackles heavy things in a way that educates and entertains, and also gives the reader space to feel all of their feelings. I appreciated the use of different pronouns, and I thought it was helpful for the characters to explain pronouns without taking the reader out of the book. Thank you to Dutton and NetGalley for this ARC!

4.0

Many thanks to Dutton and Netgalley for providing me with this eARC! Old Enough is a new adult debut novel by Haley Jakobson that explores important topics like identity, gender, sexuality, friendships, relationships, sexual assault, and knowing when to let go. The story follows Sav, a college sophomore who has recently come out as bisexual and come into her own, as she struggles with coming to terms with a past sexual assault and her relationship with her childhood best friend, Izzie. I found the author’s voice in this novel particularly powerful and important with how they address that sexual assault is a not always black and white. All the supporting characters were incredibly fun and fleshed out and I would always smile when they would appear. Even Lara, who actually turned out to be one of my favorites! All in all, I give this book 4 out of 5 stars and am looking forward to reading more of Jakobson’s works in the future!

A beautiful, heartbreaking debut from Haley. This story is difficult to read at times and falls into cliche at others, but it’s always honest and emotionally raw. I enjoyed reading it and hope others do as well!

A coming of age story that is very inclusive and diverse, with characters of all different sexualities and genders.
Unfortunately, the story and the characters were just surface level, I needed more depth; a lot of it! Even their interactions with each other seemed petty and unrealistic.

Sav is a Sophomore in college who has just come out as bisexual after a summer fling. She is navigating her new identity and her new community while struggling with her old self and life. As she becomes closer to her new friends, she realizes she has outgrown her childhood best friend who is living a very different life at a college in the south where she is in a sorority and planning a wedding to a guy who is in the ROTC. To make things even more complicated, Savannah is grappling with a sexual assault that occurred when she was sixteen.

I thought this was a really interesting peek into college life and queer life. There were a lot of important conversations in this book, and the growth of the main character was inspiring.

I had mixed feelings about this book until about 40% in. I just didn’t know where it was going, it felt scattered and all the relationships very surface-level.

But I ended up liking it a lot, how the friendships evolved and how it dealt with the issue of sexual assault.

I also think that one of the reasons I struggled to connect with the book at first it’s because it is a new adult/YA story and it’s not what I gravitate towards. But I’m very glad I didn’t give up on it!

In Haley Jakobson's debut novel Old Enough, we meet Savannah "Sav" Henry and her best friend from childhood Izzie. They had spent many nights planning what college they would attend together, what their wedding dresses would look like, and how they would be maids of honor at each other's wedding. Fast forward to the present: Sav is in her sophomore year at a liberal arts college and has finally come out as bisexual. She's making friends with others in the queer community and is exploring what her newly-admitted queerness means.

Meanwhile, Izzie is away at a prestigious east coast college. As often happens when friends move away, their closeness fades. But Sav is shocked when she sees Izzie's engagement announcement on Instagram. That's not how it went in their plans! But that's not the only thing that plagues this relationship. When they were teens, Sav and Izzie's brother had a falling out, and it affected Sav's and Izzie's friendship. Having to face Izzie's brother again forces Sav to examine what happened and deal with the trauma.

Old Enough was an okay novel. I didn't connect much with any of the characters or their relationships. Somehow, it felt forced, like the book was trying too hard. I did like how Sav had to deal with her trauma, and name it. That resonated with me, as I had to do the same thing, but it took me over 40 years to do it. Overall, the book was good for a first novel.

Old Enough by Haley Jakobson. #OldEnough #NetGalley

Ever had a friendship that you held on to because you were friends as kids, you have a history but you don't so much like the person they've become and they don't understand you at all? Or maybe you didn't feel like you fit in anywhere, you haven't told anyone about the awful thing that happened to you and oh yeah, you are trying to navigate college too? All of this is going on at once in this book and damn.

I remember trying to figure out who I was in college and I'm still figuring it out 20 years later. To say I loved this book is an understatement. The found family aspect of this is truly amazing. The relationship development was perfection. So why didn't I give it five stars? I had some issues with the back and forth in time POV. For a few chapters, it was confusing to me who was who and I had a hard time figuring it out. I got a rhythm eventually or it was clearer, I'm not sure. That's the only thing that kept me from giving this five stars.

I'm so grateful to Penguin Group Dutton for allowing me to read this book early. It's truly wonderful.

I couldn’t handle the depictions of sexual assault. Thank you for the opportunity. Otherwise I really enjoyed the book.

Thank you to Penguin, Dutton, and NetGalley for this ARC.

This book is already out in stores, I’m just awful at reading things in a timely manner.

I came into this book a little unsure of how I was going to feel about it. I came out of it in tears, smiling, and feeling like I’d made some very good friends in Savannah, Candace, Vera, and Wes.

This book covers heavy, hard topics, but does so in a way that is poignant. It is equal parts heartbreaking and uplifting, and Savannah is a perfectly imperfect, awkward, hilarious main character.

I deeply loved this book, deeply felt connected to it, and will be buying a finished copy asap.

Wow I LOVED Old Enough. Especially for a debut author, I was blown away by the delicate balance this book struck between lighthearted funny moments and deep emotional vulnerability and discussion of trauma. The characters were treated with such care. I really loved the author's exploration of girlhood and adolescence. I wish I could bottle up the way this book made me feel and experience over and over again. Please read this!!

It was cute. Felt more like YA. Wish there was more depth in a few characters rather than so little about so many. All of the different identities can at times feel forced.

The big Bi book of 2023, I didn't expect to love this as much as I did- it was fun, warm, engaging and charming, I loved Savannah and her struggle to find her place in the world as a baby queer while also negotiating her teenage trauma- the characters were quippy and witty and lovely, and this entire book just felt like a dance party for queer joy. Jakobson is a writer who makes the balancing act of remarkable characters and realistic pathos look easy, and I look forward to see what she does next!

As a victim of SA, I wish I had this book when I was younger. This book was intimate and immersed you in Sav's world. I like when I read a LGBTQIA novel and can still fully relate despite being straight.

Old Enough is about a lot of things. The main character is Savannah who goes by Sav. Sav, a sophomore in college, was a victim of sexual assault. Sav is trying to work through the trauma of the assault, her sexuality, her relationship with her childhood best friend, and life in general. There are a lot of characters, most of whom are in a class with Sav and are introduced all at the same time. The preferred pronoun of each character was also given at that time. They were introduced in such a way that a list would have been just as effective.

Most of the time was present day, but there were flashbacks to an earlier time. However, no indication was given that you were going back to an earlier time. Old Enough touched on a number of relevant and current topics. Things started out slow and I actually started and stopped the book several times before finally continuing.

I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I’ve never read something so hungrily wanting to be an advocate for BISEXUALITY, diversity, queerness, survivors, etc etc (cue the author’s instagram/tiktok) and fail on almost every account. There’s definitely something here about the discussion of SA so I don’t want to take that away because there should be a discussion had about how she handled it and how the way it was handled will likely help someone in the future. and I want to be real firm when I say that no, I don’t like this book but yes, I can see why someone would. but the amount of elements I found problematic throughout this book was crazy. The writing was very young for an adult book, in a way that it reads like YA very simple but I don’t want to discredit YA because not all YA writing is bad writing. However, there has to be something for the reader to latch onto in terms of depth. Unfortunately, there was nothing here for me.

The MC was constantly assuming things about the other characters especially when it came to their pronouns which is insane because there’s this big discussion at the beginning where everyone unilaterally says their pronouns yet when it comes to someone “straight-appearing”(whatever that means. I guess if you look like you’re in a sorority that’s you) it’s okay to assume who they identify as/with. Got it ✅

And, and, the scene where she called a straight cis male transphobic because he wasn’t aware that you could use two different pronouns. As a queer woman, at one point I didn’t know that either but someone gave me the grace to learn and I did and now I know. He wasn’t afforded that grace and it seemed to me it was because he was straight and that’s just ridiculous. I can’t get behind this rhetoric that establishes that heterosexual people are basically idiots who don’t really know anything about queerness and they can’t learn? Like wtf is that.

It also moved incredibly fast at the end. I felt like we didn’t get to take anything in so much suddenly started happening.

Undoubtedly the book wanted to be a lot of things for a lot of people and failed on all accounts mostly because of the skewed messages that were sprinkled throughout. I could go on for days writing paragraphs about my tabs but I’m not. I’ll just end this by saying read it if you want. I’m sure you were going to do that anyway.

This is the best book I’ve read so far this year. Probably because I’m a narcissist but also because it’s fantastic.

This book is difficult to review because it is so deeply personal and mirrors so many of my own experiences back to me, thankfully with some slight differences to keep it from being too intense. I have never had an original thought or experience ever though, confirmed.

Similar to the protagonist, Sav, I spent my sophomore year of college coming out as bisexual, having a massive relationship reckoning for similar but different reasons with my childhood best friend who was also my neighbor, processing a lot of grief and trauma, among other things. While books that I relate to so intensely can sometimes leave me raw, this one left me a little more healed. I’m glad this came into my life when it did. Had I read this in college, it would’ve been too much, but reading it now feels like a gift.

I loved this book so much. The pacing was excellent, the core side characters were interesting and well developed, I felt immense empathy and love for Savannah, and the storytelling and writing felt fresh and unique.

If you end up not liking this book you just don’t like me and that’s just going to be on you.

Will share more thoughts about this book after I’m done annotating it. It’s my new personality trait and I’m planning on being really insufferable about it.

Read if you like: chaos bisexual rep, queer friend groups, coming of age novels, campus novels, new adult books

⚠️TWs: sexual assault/rape, biphobia, transphobia, homophobia, trauma, toxic friendships, fatphobia, bullying, domestic abuse, occasional heavy alcohol use

Sadly this did not work for me like it has for many others. The writing felt immature to me, and not in the way of a young adults POV in the story, but in the actual writing itself. Some of the dialogue felt clunky. When I was talking about this to a coworker, it feels like this book will read quite dated in however many years.

On a positive, I did love the friendships that the main character made. But overall, this needed to be worked on a little more before pub.

I'm so annoyed with this book. I was so excited to read this when I saw an ARC email from Dutton in my inbox and I was left with a sour taste in my mouth.
The synopsis promises a fun novel and heartfelt novel about a bisexual girl exploring and accepting her sexuality, while discussing what it means to be a sexual assault survivor but that's not what we are given. The first few chapters of this book are promising, the first introducing us to our MC and her group of new queer friends, then we move into her background with her childhood best friend Izzy (who SUCKS) and then we spend...so...much...time...just talking? about what, I couldn't say. While the writing was beautiful and Jakobson's voice is poetic, it wasn't enough to save this book for me. The pacing is far too slow for the content, and the characters feel underdeveloped and I never learned enough to actually care about what was going on with them--this story floats on the surface without ever diving under it to really explore the internal complexities of what these characters are going through.
I wish Jakobson would have given us more and developed the characters and relationships farther, but, c'est la vie.