Imogen, Obviously: New for 2023, from the bestselling author of Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda

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I’m sorry, no. Kara Clapstone doesn’t need to set her coming-out timeline according to your weird parasocial entitlement.” Okay, but let’s say you like a girl, and then it turns out that she’s faking it. What would you do?”

Like when Lili drops a tiny queer bombshell: she's told all her college friends that Imogen and Lili used to date. And none of them know that Imogen is a raging hetero—not even Lili’s best friend, Tessa.So are you.” I pause, furrowing my brow. “Oh, God—do they think—I don’t want anyone to feel unsafe, or—” In a social media graphic for the book, the author describes Imogen as having "queer discourse brainworms", which is a good way to put it. She tries to educate herself about queer issues, but just ends up thinking that there’s only one right way to be queer. She doesn’t feel the same way about girls as she does in her crushes on guys, so she concludes that means she doesn’t like girls at all. Even when faced with obvious evidence to the contrary, she convinces herself that she’s just trying to be bisexual for clout and that she’s a bad person for appropriating queerness. tessa is downright funny, supportive, and kind. her adhd mind spirals a lot and boats out random things, making reading the text messages very entertaining. she’s a joyous person, trying her best to lighten the mood. we don’t get her pov, but i didn’t think it was missing it either. we learn a lot about her from imogen, and the necessary information is given. i loved her character from the beginning. she’s mature, intelligent, and always finding a solution for problems. along with that, the other side characters (who are her friends too), were a fantastic addiction to this. we don’t learn almost anything about them besides the very basics, but again, considering this is a coming of age story of imogen and finding her new love, it didn’t feel necessary, or like something was missing. i will admit, sometimes the group did fit a tad bit too young, as if they weren’t the college students they were, and i’m not sure if that comes from not knowing who they really are, or if that’s just how they really are. Tessa’s so close, but I press in closer, and she lets out the softest-edged sigh. Her hands trail the hem of my waterlogged shirt, and I swear it feels like taking off sunglasses. Clarity and brightness.

This is somewhat of a painful book. Painful because of what Imogen goes through with the self-doubt (exacerbated by a friend who does not behave in understanding ways for the majority of their interactions) but also painful because it's so heavily inspired by what the author herself went through. And so many others, in fact, who were forced to come out to be seen as an acceptable voice or presence in queer spaces.Aside from an emotional but beautiful self discovery story, this also has amazing friendships though, and a romance that's literally. To. Die. For. The heavier moments were almost effortlessly balanced out by so many cute, wholesome, and really funny moments. If I had to comp this book to anything, it would be YA One Last Stop, based on the humour and the friendship. Which is funny, because Imogen is a huge One Last Stop fan (as she should be).

How do you know—how do you really know if someone likes you? Especially with girls. It gets so blurry sometimes. Two girls will hug each other right in front of you, and you’ll have no idea if they’re girlfriends or besties or what. Unless they’re actively making out, you need floating heart emojis and a movie score to interpret it. Imogen consumes queer media like I do, and I consume a LOT of queer media. Imogen, bb, let’s be friends, please! I wanted to give Gretchen the benefit of the doubt, but with every passing interaction, and then the eventual blow up, there was no way she couldn’t have known she was in the wrong. Alas, people like her never want to admit they’re wrong. And yet, Imogen falls into all the classic "closeted bi girl" tropes like "sits weird" "loves queer movies" "overenthusiastic ally", just with the "twist" that she looks very stereotypically femme so "no one ever thinks she could be bi"Nothing bad! I mean, not, like, catastrophic? I don’t know.” I nod slowly, and she looks at me. “So. My friends—” I promise I’m not. I’m just saying, you have a right to be kind of unsettled by this. I don’t even mind if you blow my cover. I mean, I mind. But if you want to set the record straight, we totally can. I get it.” I hug Puppy the unicorn close to my chest. “So it’s just...I’m bisexual? And we used to date, but we’re friends now. And other than that—” In case you haven’t been hearing the hordes of queer bookstagrammers screaming about this book, Imogen, Obviously follows our certified heterosexual and biggest ally™️. When Imogen visits her friend Lili at the college she’ll be attending next year, she gets roped into pretending to be Lili’s ex-girlfriend… which means acting like she’s bi and lying in front of Lili’s friends (including the extremely hot Tessa). But she’s not actually queer, right? This isn’t a crush… obviously.

Oh! Oh no. Scott—Scotty. Hey.” She hugs me, and I bury my face in the spot where her chest meets her shoulder. “Don’t listen to the pink-haired girl, okay?” Immy, come on—no one thinks you’re a queerphobe.” She shakes her head at me, smiling. “And yes, I know I’m queer. I’m valid. All of that. I guess it’s just me seeing the way—I don’t know. They have their shit together, you know?” Maybe shared experiences shouldn't be the foundation at all. Maybe it should be a promise to hold space for variation. I started listening to the audiobook initially, and Imogen immediately stole my heart. She's the loveliest person ever, and all I want is to protect her until the end of time. I know she has her sister Edith already, but maybe they're both in the market for an older sibling?

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Imogen is invited along to spend the weekend at her best friend, Lili’s college – the one she will also be attending when she has graduated high school. Imogen is a sweet cinnamon roll who needs a BIG HUG. Like. Yes she does. I need to hug this sweet summer child. Or Halloween child, really. I love that her birthday is on Halloween, that is so epic of her. Content warnings: coming out themes (central topic), underage drinking and alcohol consumption, forced outing, biphobia, internalised biphobia, internalised homophobia, discussions surrounding queerbaiting The premise of this book is that Imogen goes to visit her childhood friend, Lili, at Lili's college. When she gets there, Lili pulls her aside and says she lied to her friends about something: she said that Imogen and Lili dated when they were younger. Awkward, since Imogen is straight and the two of them definitely didn't date, but Imogen is totally cool with it... Which, for some reason, Lili tries to convince her that she's not?