Review: Looking for Group

Looking for Group by Rory Harrison
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I sorta remember I picked this book up because of Zac Brewer's blurb on the cover, because as far as I know, Zac Brewer almost never blurbs books, and he's one of a few authors whom I would absolutely LOVE to see blurb for mine someday. Suffice it to say I was actually extremely disappointed in what I read. I mean, it should've been pretty well tailor-made for me, this book, with its strong queer rep - Dylan being gay, Arden being trans. And I totally see why Uncle Z blurbed this one, because like his own books, this one offers a few lessons on fluidity of sexuality and blurring the label lines (though it's also backfired somewhat; I've peeked at other reviews and found a lot of people, including trans women, either confused or dismayed or outraged or some combination thereof).

Me, though, my problem with this book wasn't rooted in its queer rep in any way. No, it was a combination of unusual formatting (when was the last time I saw a book where all the paragraphs were unindented with breaks between each one?) and a storyline that mashed up a bunch of John Green books at once. TFIOS for Dylan being a cancer survivor, Paper Towns for the road-trip elements, Turtles for the extremely rambling narrative style hiding a surprisingly paper-thin plot, and pretty much all the other John Green books for its (admittedly unique) spin on the manic pixie dream girl trope. So, while this book does get credit where credit's due, it's not enough for me to recommend it, I'm afraid. Shame, I had high hopes.

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