Review: This Is Kind of an Epic Love Story

This Is Kind of an Epic Love Story by Kacen Callender
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Right now everyone's raving about Kacen Callender for their newest book Felix Ever After, but sadly my library isn't open to distribute copies, and for some reason doesn't have ebooks of it either. I'm mystified that they haven't, especially during Pride Month, but at least they had the ebook of Callender's YA debut, which I've clearly been sleeping on for quite a while. Casually inclusive in its casting just like a lot of the best YA in recent years, this book focuses on a Black bi boy, Nathan Bird, trying to navigate both applications to a creative-writing program (he's looking to get into screenwriting, which I very much appreciate) and the numerous on-again, off-again relationship shenanigans his circle of friends gets into. (Notably, his ex-girlfriend, with whom he's trying to relearn how to be friends platonically, now has a girlfriend herself - and nobody bats an eye, as well they shouldn't.) And then in comes his old childhood friend Oliver James Hernandez (frequently referred to by his first and middle name both), back in Seattle after having lived in Santa Fe for quite some time. Nathan kissed Oliver James before the latter moved away, and now that they're back in each other's lives, they can finally rekindle that spark...but is it truly still viable after so many years? You'll just have to wait and find out. And I'll be honest, I almost cried reading this book because it's just one of so many that is so realistically sex-positive that it hurts me, a boy who's never had a chance at living a sex-positive life. Well, maybe when I move to Oregon or Washington, as I recently brought up in a quote-tweet from Callender themself asking about people's future plans. It'll take a miracle, but if there's one thing Callender showcases in their work, it's the truth that miracles do happen...even if they don't quite turn out like how you expect.

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