To be clear, I don't think this book is problematic or that the questioning rep is bad, which I've seen a few reviews suggest. Coming from someone who spent quite a bit of time questioning her sexuality, I understood Nandan greatly and I think it's important to represent internalized homophobia, something I still struggle with every single day. The repulsion Nandan feels about being queer, gay, bi, whatever label he hasn't discovered yet, isn't because he hates gay people or thinks they're disgusting, it's because he thinks he's disgusting.

I do wish this book concluded more in the end, maybe discussed how Nandan pushed Dave around so much, maybe unpacked his feelings of internalized homophobia and personal discovery. I wish his relationship with Dave hadn't been rushed in the beginning and hadn't happened so quickly. However, that could be realistic for some people!

Ultimately, I think this is an important and valuable book and maybe it would have been important for me a few years ago! I just think that the writing style (messy, complicated), the amount of characters (WAY too many), and the pacing let it down. It had the opportunity to discuss internalized homophobia, to discuss what it means to question your sexuality, what it means to come out when you're not ready, what it means to be outed (which was brushed over in a way and I don't fully appreciate that), and what it means to be queer and not know what label to use.

This book isn't a failure; it just isn't done as well as I had hoped. But that's just me! I wouldn't persuade anyone not to read this book; I just didn't like it myself.

-Book Hugger