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

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Albertalli balances sizzling romance and emotional coming-of-age with ease here, I wouldn’t change a thing! I never really thought I was straight, as soon as I learned that was a possibility, and I didn't face much pushback from anyone I knew when I told them. i wanna pretend that imogen is in a completely safe space, where she’s accepted, valued, and not questioned.

For those who don't know (and this is very much an abbreviation) the author was criticized and bullied for being a straight woman writing queer books, until the author came out publicly as queer. Bronwyn’s cousin Anais tries to keep her safe, but outsiders rarely understand that the Hillwoods residents’ rituals are less about superstition and more about survival.Naturally, there are at least a dozen pictures of Mel, plus the one from my tenth birthday where Lili’s dressed as Mel.

It’s like stepping into an alternate universe—sorry, but I’ve known Lili Cardoso since she was three years old, and parties are her personal hell. The romance was cute but it was extremely obvious that Albertalli wrote this from a place of bitterness instead of a desire to tell a story. imogen starts having these feelings for tessa, which she finds difficult to interpret at first because it’s towards another girl, but she comes to grasp them and unconsciously accept them.Imogen’s story differs from mine in many ways, but she’s absorbing the same discourse and experiencing a lot of the same emotions. I'm not sure if that's because I just never felt so out of touch with reality or what, but whatever it is, I wish there was less acknowledgement of it in the world. Sexuality is fluid and exists on a spectrum—and can often be a difficult and complex aspect of our identity. even though it was 400+ pages i couldn't put it down, and flew through the whole thing in a couple of hours today!

This achingly beautiful story follows an Iranian family over 80 years, from the perspective of three generations of teens. I’ve been”—she kisses me—“losing my goddamn mind”—she kisses me again—“ever since that dog wandered over, and you just—boom”—another kiss—“dropped down and hugged her. But after he learns that it features a character described as the vengeful spirit of an “Indian maiden,” he becomes unsettled by the organizer’s stereotypical and offensive choices and tries to figure out when to speak up. And when she visits her best friend, Lili, at college who is newly-out, newly-graduated, and newly thriving, with a cool new squad of queer college friends, no one knows that Imogen's a raging hetero - not even Lili's best friend, Tessa. she doesn’t believe you need to be part of the lgbtq+ to be incredibly supportive, and everything she does is for the good of the community.The weekend goes better than she could have hoped for and she walks away with something she never expected – a crush on one of Lili’s super cute friends, Tessa. Luckily, her job at her cousin’s restaurant brings her into contact with Javi, who is willing to help her break it. She shares very personal emotions through Imogen, she pushes people to reflect on their actions and beliefs, she fills every line with her heart and soul.

I can’t emphasize this enough—these are very real perspectives that were (and are) frequently repeated in queer spaces. I loved how real everything felt, from the jokes to the texts to the little details and discoveries they made about each other. I like Imogen as a character I like the cast of side characters Tessa as a girlfriend is fine they're cute together whatever. gretchen, who doesn’t realize she invalidates others itentities because she needs to put herself first. she uses her bad experiences to guilt-trip people and make them feel like their experience can’t compare.She tries to educate herself about queer issues, but just ends up thinking that there’s only one right way to be queer. so much of imogen's journey resonates in that odd gray area of needing to slot neatly into a box to be fully accepted. Soccer is everything to Valentina Castillo-Green, so when a fight with longtime rival Leticia Ortiz leads to her team losing not just the game, but also respect from her teammates and chances with college recruiters, it’s devastating. She's supposedly one of Imogens closest friends, yet Imogen talks shit about her every time she isn't around. I don't think Gretchen is a very nice person over all and she hurt Imogen and all of that is quite horrible, but it makes me feel weird that every other character gets at least some grace and leeway for shitty behaviour and Gretchen is given none.