I too have given up. The storyline just wanders way too much and sections are just so boring. I liked the first person Anastasia sections—- hated/was bored during the Anna third person bits. Anna was just so dislikable.

So I'm a cis, straight, white woman - but I try to be an ally. I think most of the time, my heart is in it more than the rest of me, meaning I *want* to help, but don't always know how. This book is the first of hopefully a few books that will educate me so I can be a better ally, a true ally, someone who doesn't just claim to be an ally but actually does something.

This book is definitely written for both gay & straights, and was a very basic, general book -- it is a great starting point if you need help, have questions, and need answers. James is pretty blunt about some topics in the book, but he's writing to educate, not shock, and did a fantastic job.

This is a very quick, novella - only 100 pages or so - that I read in less than a couple of hours.

Though this is book 1.5 in the series, it really had nothing to do with book 1; the story involves a sibling from book one, who we never meet. You can't quite call this one a stand alone, either, because the way the story ends, it's not really an ending (to me, the ending reads like the end of an episode of a TV show, where everything is wrapped up, but the story line ARC hasn't finished).

This book revolves around Phil, his younger "sister", his boyfriend, Logan, and Phil's newly adopted family. The adoptive story line actually rather drove me crazy; the new parents just showed up one day and boom! Without an interview, showing paperwork, or anything more than two hours notice, he's magically adopted, along with the girl he considers his sister. Wow, gee, I wish it worked like that in the real life! Seriously, I know the point of the book wasn't the adoption process, but Phil learning to love and to trust again, and all of that was really very sweet, but about two seconds after he met his new adoptive parents he loved and trusted them. Right. A teenager, who has been hurt his whole life, trusting new people practically in an instant? I repeat.... R-I-G-H-T.

Other than that, I really liked the quick story! It's not very "fantasy", it's not very "magically". This one takes place in the real world, and other than some brief magical scenes, the book is a contemporary, real life YA book - NOT my usual cup of tea, and definitely not my usual read. You'd think I'd hate it, but White really does a fantastic job writing her characters as real people, so I enjoyed the book all the same.