Friday, June 8, 2018

Review: Autoboyography

Autoboyography Autoboyography by Christina Lauren
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Like both the Becky Albertalli books I've read so far, I'm thinking this one's a good 3.5, but I'll round it up to a 4 as an #ownvoices bi reader who found Tanner's story pretty damn relatable, especially when it came down to his identity. Maybe not a perfect match, because he's got a family who's very accepting of his sexuality while it's the place he lives in that demands he stay closeted - pretty much the exact opposite of me. And probably because of that, he's felt more free to explore his sexuality than I ever have. But then he really truly falls head over heels for a guy - a Mormon guy at that, for maximum drama points - and that's when his whole life is topsy-turvy and turvy-topsy, and that's when he's at his sweetest and most ready to be part of the Albertalli-Thomas-Silvera shared 'verse. (Even if he doesn't quite have the level of geek cred of Simon or Abby or Starr or Bram or Aaron or Rufus or Mateo, they'll all accept him as one of their own kind for sure.)

Overall, this book runs a little longer than it should - and the last 75 pages or so feel a little weird, with the random POV shift out of Tanner's usual first-person perspective that's just a little too jarring for me. But for what it's worth, this book does its job very well, exploring the life of an adolescent writer falling for someone older and with more life experience (and his own trials and tribulations too - despite this book not exploring the same sect of faith in which I was raised, I related a lot to Sebastian's conflict between spirituality and religion, especially when he prayed to God and God approved of him as is despite the bass-ackwardsness of his family's religion's rules.)

Bottom line, this book is great for me not only as an #ownvoices reader, but also as an ex-religious reader, precisely because of what makes this book #ownvoices to me as a reader. Anything else by the team of Christina and Lauren, I'll have to take a look at as soon as I can!

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