This book had me at this gorgeous cover.

Adren and his mom are making the move from LA to the small Michigan town his mother grew up in. Gabe is leaving his small town in Illinois to move to California with his family. Both trans boys happen to meet at a random hotel in Nebraska and bond over this and their favorite band Damaged Pixie Dream Boi. The boys decide to have one great memory of hanging out and don't exchange any info, which they both almost immediately regret.

They both end up struggling with their new locations but eventually make new friends. They are also both trying to find each other.

This was a quick read, the story was really sweet and cute. I was rooting for these boys to find each other again. Are are a bunch of great side characters. It did a good job dealing with change and being yourself.

This was a fun, fast read!

Thanks NetGalley and Harper Collins Children's Books for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

4 stars

In Case You Read This is a lighthearted novel full of queer and trans joy. I read this in two days when I haven’t read something that quick in weeks! This follows Arden and Gabe as they meet for one night in a motel in Nebraska. They bond through their love of a small indie band, something i can very much relate to, (i loved all the silly indie band names throughout). They end up not getting each others numbers and spend a majority of the rest of the book trying to find each other again.

I would say this is more of a coming of age novel rather than a romance. There definitely was a romance between Arden and Gabe but honestly i didn’t feel much of the supposed chemistry. I really enjoyed following each of the characters journey with their new moves and their interactions with the rest of the side characters. I think there was also just a bit too much going on at times with the two different characters going through moves and meeting all these people at one time, that definitely had me confused at first. Despite that, it was a very fun book that deals casually with the complexities of being queer in different types of cities as well as complicated family dynamics.

To be upfront— I had to DNF at 48%

Unfortunately, I didn’t enjoy this book as much as I thought I would. The cover was very eye-catching and the synopsis sounded promising. I really wanted to like this book, because I think stories about trans characters are super important, but it wasn’t for me. Honestly, I thought it was kind of boring.

I expected there to be more chapters of them at the motel, but there was only about one and a half. That made it hard for me to root for them to find each other because we didn’t get to see them building much of a connection.

I did enjoy the awkward dialogue when they met at the motel. It felt realistic and to me it wasn’t cringy even though it was awkward. There was potential for Arden and Gabe to have chemistry, but the lack of interactions between them made it hard to see that.

I did giggle at Arden’s new school’s mascot being Pretzels. And the PQC members were funny, though they didn’t have a lot of depth. There were A LOT of side characters and I don’t think most of them were very fleshed out.

Overall, I was just bored and unmotivated to continue reading. The writing style was good and the main characters were well developed, I just think the side characters and the plot needed to be fleshed out more. There is potential here and I think others could definitely enjoy this book!

This was such a good book. I loved the story and the writing so much. The characters were great and the story flowed smoothly. Will definitely read more books by this author in the future.