This was a pretty fun, historical middle grade mystery. I was kind of waiting for it to be gayer (usually when it's rec'd by Book Riot), but maybe that develops in other books.

Okay I think I'm going to take this new energy that both PageBound and my cpap machine have given me and call this here lol.

Personally, this was not for me. Wardell would overexplain some of the dumbest, most mundane things and it would just frustrate me and pull me out every time. And I LOVE slice-of-life domesticity. So it wasn't that. I will try to explain my issues without hopefully sounding like the most petty bitch lol

So, first of all, Marvin's voice was really annoying, just personally not my vibe. The kind of somewhat pop-culture heavy references and Gilmore Girls or Marvel-style quips that I really hate and seems to over-saturate millennial writing. I am a millennial and I fucking hate it lol. Like some throw-away stuff like, I'm paraphrasing, but "I ran faster than a gaggle of gays for Gaga," or whatever. Like, he didn't feel like a person or character, he felt like a caricature. Same for his Jewishness and I know that makes me sound like I drive a cybertruck and call twitter 'X', but I swear I don't! It just felt a little too much like that episode of Frasier where they pretend to be Jewish.

I know from following him on instagram and his own author bio that Wardell loves rom-coms so like more power to him. I tried thinking about this like an inverse of the typical cishet rom-com, where instead of a straight woman with a gay bff, his gay with a straight woman bff who's like got the snarky and pushy 'go out with this guy!' role, but honestly, it was just as annoying. Like I always hate that kind of character anyway and it was just so....idk. The way they talk to each other, over-sexualizing everyone to a degree or just banging on about how hot people are, which i find exhausting and hate lol.

Marvin has anxiety and adhd and I'm quite familiar myself with those conditions but god I felt, again, like a fox news grandma being like kids today bc oh my god, you are an adult and a teacher, grow the hell up lol. The thing about the writing was that instead of feeling the anxiety with Marvin, I was just told how gosh darn anxious he is, which is super annoying to read. I'm mostly ambivalent about show vs tell bc I think both can be done well but this wasn't. I could see how, if this got the Heated Rivalry television treatment, it could be very enjoyable in that medium.

I will leave this here with the part that made me dnf (I did read a little further after but the more I thought about it, it was this that ended it for me):

Page 127

"Does this"-I use my hand to gesture between us-"mean you're bi?" "Honestly, I don't know. I think that's what's confusing me. The only relationship I've had was with Illona's mom, and right now, I really shouldn't even be dating. I didn't expect these feelings, but we were hitting it off, and I just, I don't know, when I was younger, I knew something about me was different" "Go on," I say. "There was this time, I think I was about four, I remember going to the park with my family. My mother packed a picnic, and I rested on the blanket as she unpacked the sandwiches. My two older brothers, Liam and Gabe, tossed a football on the field near the playground. Liam shouted for me to join them, and I remember feeling a pit in my stomach. They threw the ball so hard and fast that I knew I would never catch it and most likely get hurt trying. My mother handed me a book from the library I loved. It was filled with cars, trains, boats, and airplanes. I studied the pages, the photos, and the diagrams, tracing them with my finger. 'Leave Olan alone. He's reading with me,' she shouted and they finally stopped hounding me. But I knew. Something deep and frightening in my stomach screamed I was different. Different than my brothers. Different from other boys. And not in a simple way."

Like, I'm sorry, but this makes Olan sound like such a loser lol. At four he didn't feel like playing ball with his big brothers and just never examined that again, ever, ever? His inciting incident is that he wanted to read instead of toss a football? At four?! Like I'm sorry but what the fuck lol and is this some internalized racism from the author bc Marvin kept thinking there's no way Olan is gay (or bi/pan/etc) (like Black gay guys don't exist?) rather than there's no way Olan would be interested in me - like there are nuggets of this story I could enjoy, but even Olan's little memory recitation is so stilted and silly. What does the book have to do with not wanting to play football? Like, I know what he's getting at, but it's so clunky and convoluted.

Anyway. Didn't really enjoy this and like, part of it was after finding out the author is a bit of a dick and Zionist, and the rest is just this is shit writing. Will be giving my copy to the LFL outside the gay record store we go to and I hope it finds a happy home with someone through there.