Three years ago, Tanner Scott’s family relocated from California to Utah, a move that nudged the bisexual teen temporarily back into the closet. Now, with one semester of high school to go, and no obstacles between him and out-of-state college freedom, Tanner plans to coast through his remaining classes and clear out of Utah.
But when his best friend Autumn dares him to take Provo High’s prestigious Seminar—where honor roll students diligently toil to draft a book in a semester—Tanner can’t resist going against his better judgment and having a go, if only to prove to Autumn how silly the whole thing is. Writing a book in four months sounds simple. Four months is an eternity.
It turns out, Tanner is only partly four months is a long time. After all, it takes only one second for him to notice Sebastian Brother, the Mormon prodigy who sold his own Seminar novel the year before and who now mentors the class. And it takes less than a month for Tanner to fall completely in love with him.
Comment: This story got on my radar because of the theme and because it would be a different type of book for authors Christina Lauren, of whom I had only read one other book. Still, these authors usually write m/f romance and I was curious abut how they would approach an m/m one, even if it was YA.
In this story we meet Tanner Scott, a student at Provo High school, as he embarks on his final year, an already quite eager to go to college. Tanner and his family moved from California to Utah for his mother's work and things have been fine but Provo is home to a huge Mormon community and they don't approve of gay relationships. Tanner is bi but he knows if he is interested in another guy, most people would not like it, even if his own family gives him all the support. He feels things will quickly change as soon as he goes to college but now, out of seemingly nowhere he meets Sebastian Brother, son of the local Bishop, a student who wrote a book in the famous Seminar class many seniors attend. But Sebastian cannot like guys, right? But how can Tanner explain the connection? Is there any hope for them?
I had liked but not loved the other book by these authors I had tried. I was still eager to try this one for the novelty of the theme - for me - and was curious to see how the authors would deal with a m/m story. I also liked reading the note at the end and how they were inspired to write this book, but I will say that for a reader that has read other m/m stories, this wasn't the most thrilling one. At the same time, this was clearly a story with a message,so...
The story is told by Tanner except a couple of chapters closer to the end, which are in third person focused on Sebastian. I liked Tanner as narrator because he is funny, smart, interesting and he happens to have a supportive family which tells us how much support he has at home. I liked seeing this perspective and the close relationship he has with his parents and sister, but the parents really are great. Regardless of this, though, he is still at a teenager age, about to move on to new adult and some of his behavior shows. There is a reason why I tend to avoid YA novels....
Anyway, the conflict here is mostly related to how Sebastian is part of the Mormon community and the "rules" for those who profess this faith are very specific and this does affect how Sebastian and Tanner could be seen by others if they were to become a couple. I think the authors really did a good job presenting the traditional adolescence issues with this specifically religious aspect; after all, they could not assume if they were a couple if Sebastian wanted to remain part of the Church.
There is doubt, fear, anxiety but also eagerness and true feelings while these two become closer and until their first kiss. As expected, a lot of the issues are set on the forbidden aspect, so much that added with the YA label, this story is a bit too plain in how the attraction between that is portrayed. Still, the way they think and process their emotions and how they cannot control the opinion of others is always at the back of their minds. To be fair, they don't have time to be a couple before serious obstacles happen in the plot and the focus isn't on the physicality of their relationship, but I still think some things were made to seem a bit too simplistic in that regard.
As I kept reading, some details started to be quite predictable and namely the progress of the relationship and where it would go felt very obvious. At some point a big conflict related to Sebastian's parents and how they would "hypothetically" deal with a child that was not heterosexual caused major issues. Then, in my opinion, Tanner does something which feels like a very pointless decision by the authors. I thought to myself, why, this is not necessary, and it ended up coloring my overall notion of the book. I think this detail i'm thinking of, quite the spoiler, was not well done.
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