Review: The Brightsiders

The Brightsiders by Jen Wilde
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"Written in graffiti on a bridge in the park
'Do you ever get the feeling that you're missing the mark?'"
-Coldplay, "Hurts Like Heaven"

Trigger warnings for this book: abusive parents, abusive relationships, slut-shaming, biphobia, mental illness (particularly acute social anxiety), allusions to transphobia and racism.

Yeah, compared to Queens of Geek, Jen Wilde's latest ain't so fluffy and sweet. Well, Geek got into some pretty heavy territory sometimes as well, but not to this degree. Though that's to be expected when the territory here is about teenage rockstars, and our main character, in particular, parties hard to cope with the sheer pressures of fame.

But then, Emmy King's got a lot of great friends to back her up. Her bandmates, Alfie and Ryan. Her best friend Chloe. Alyssa and Charlie and Taylor and Jamie from Queens of Geek - you have no idea how happy I was to see all my faves return! And of course, Emmy's cousin Kass, one of the few family members of hers who has her back at all times. Unlike her parents, who are lying, backstabbing, self-absorbed...God, I just loathed them so much, even more so than Charlie's ex whose name I've now forgotten, lol.

And, as always, Wilde's greatest strength lies in the sheer diversity of her cast. All three Brightsiders band members are some flavor of queer - Emmy and Ryan are both cis bi (the latter figuring his own sexuality out over the course of the book), Alfie is pan and genderqueer, using he/him pronouns (and, being Emmy's major love interest throughout the book, it's actually the first I've read in YA with an f/nb romance - the only other one I know of being Cam Girl, and that's decidedly NA.) Chloe, as a major supporting character, brings some welcome enby rep to the table (and they're bi too!) And it definitely wouldn't be Wilde without a few nods to intersectionality and race - Chloe, being black (and with a white feminist for a mom, because Emmy's not the only one with serious parental problems), has a few good words on the subject. Ryan is Korean too, and of course there's the interracial pairing of Alyssa and Charlie carried over from Queens of Geek.

What really shone the most for me, though, was Alfie's social anxiety. I went into this book thinking I'd be reading it #ownvoices only as a bi person, but I was surprised to find another aspect to make this one an #ownvoices read for me too - one that I've very rarely seen, and if I have, it's never been explicitly made clear. Like a lot of #ownvoices cases for neuro- and psychological conditions, Alfie doesn't 100% mirror me - I don't find myself vomiting like he often does - but he does mirror me as exactly as he can in one way that really counts. He masks well enough that literally nobody can tell he struggles until he says so - or, worse, when they see him in a vulnerable moment. Heck, just last year I was sort of reconnecting with an old high school classmate on Facebook, and I told him I had social anxiety, and he said something to the effect of, "Would never have guessed that, man." (On a lighter note, after a few years of literally all my old high school friends slowly forgetting my existence, this same guy was the only one to actually wish me a happy birthday just last week like next to no time had passed.)

I guess Wilde's building herself a sort of SwoonReads universe with Queens of Geek and The Brightsiders. I can only imagine where she'd go from here, but it'd really be something to see. And one thing's for sure, it's going to be inclusive as hell and I'm here for that. :D

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