Disclaimer: I received this e-arc and arc from the publisher. Thanks! All opinions are my own.

Book: Take a Bow, Noah Mitchell

Author: Tobias Madden

Book Series: Standalone

Rating: 5/5

Diversity: Gay MC, Gay characters, MM romance, South Asian characters

Recommended For...: young adult readers, romance, contemporary, MM romance, RPGs, gaymers, musicals, showmance, LGBT

Publication Date: August 30, 2022

Genre: YA Romance

Age Relevance: 16+ (romance, sexual content, bullying, homophobia, cursing, skinny shaming, exercise/weight, vomit gore, underage alcohol consumption, drugs, sexual assault)

Explanation of Above: There is a lot of romance in this book, along with some scenes and mentions of sexual content including 2 sex scenes (nothing graphic shown). There is sexual assault of minors mentioned in passing as a part of a police investigation and there is no baring of it on the plot. There are scenes and mentions of bullying, homophobia, and skinny shaming. There is some slight cursing in this book. There are scenes and mentions of exercise and weight gain. There are a couple of scenes involving and mentioning vomit. Underage alcohol consumption and drug use is mentioned and shown in the book a couple of times as well.

Publisher: Page Street Kids

Pages: 368

Synopsis: Seventeen-year-old gaymer Noah Mitchell only has one friend left: the wonderful, funny, strictly online-only MagePants69. After years playing RPGs together, they know everything about each other, except anything that would give away their real life identities. And Noah is certain that if they could just meet in person, they would be soulmates. Noah would do anything to make this happen—including finally leaving his gaming chair to join a community theater show that he’s only mostly sure MagePants69 is performing in. Noah has never done anything like theater—he can’t sing, he can’t dance, and he’s never willingly watched a musical—but he’ll have to go all in to have a chance at love.

With Noah’s mum performing in the lead role, and former friends waiting in the wings to sabotage his reputation, his plan to make MagePants69 fall in love with him might be a little more difficult than originally anticipated.

And the longer Noah waits to come clean, the more tangled his web of lies becomes. By opening night, he will have to decide if telling the truth is worth closing the curtain on his one shot at true love.

Review: This book was so so cute! I loved the story and this is probably going to be a favorite of mine for this month. The book feels like a cross between Simon Vs and The Love Curse of Melody McIntyre with really cute moments of online gaming and RPGs. The book is set in Australia, which is something I don’t see in a lot of books, and involves musical theater as well. The book also had a very teenager feel to it. The book was full of awkward first moments and mess-ups, which is very uniquely teenager. The voices of the characters were age appropriate and the issues the MC faced are some that a lot of teens face. The author did well to tackle how a lot of times mess-ups are something that you can’t make right completely or ever return back to normal from, which is unfortunate but a very important message for teens. I also liked how the author tackled skinny shaming, especially in those who identify as male, which is something I don’t see a lot in books. Overall, I loved the plot, the pacing was on point, the characters were well developed, and the writing was well done.

However, the only issue I had with the book is that I feel like it could have been a bit more developed in the world building department. It was great, but some of the theater aspects were a bit confusing. As someone who did theater in high school, community theater in Australia is vastly different than what I experienced.

Verdict: It was very well done! I highly recommend it.