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Aug. 29th, 2018 08:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsI'm trying to figure out how I feel about the structure of Leah on the Offbeat, the sequel to Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, in which Simon (of book one)'s best friend Leah navigates Senior Year, Friend Group Drama, And Bisexuality.
This book is not as cute as Simon, which might be a pro or a con depending on where you're standing. Leah is a much angrier character than Simon, and while the book could still fall pretty squarely into the category of rom-com, it's significantly less tropey and comes down more heavily on the coming-of-age aspect of the story.
But: it's nonetheless a rom-com. And, as rom-coms do, it ends with a triumphant Getting Together in spite of all the obstacles standing in the way of our protagonists. I'm super good with the triumphant Getting Together, but the book does set up an awful lot of dominoes that are definitely going to fall once the Getting Together happens, and then just ... stops before they hit? Our kids agree to face the fallout, and then we're at an epilogue and in the epilogue everything is totally one hundred percent fine.
And maybe that's okay, rom-com-wise! It's not like I really wanted to see all the dominoes fall and hit everyone in the face, it definitely wasn't going to be a fun time, and -- especially in queer rom-coms -- sometimes you do just want to see kids have a fun time. But structurally speaking a part of me feels like if you're going to establish stakes then at least some of the results of those stakes need to actually happen on-page.
Anyway, structural doubts aside: Albertelli is extremely good at writing teenagers. Her high school friend group dynamics feel so believable and messy and complicated! Everybody is friends with a whole bunch of people who aren't necessarily friends with each other! She even successfully writes about Teens Engaging in Fandom in a way that was not (to me) cringey, and I normally cannot even contemplate reading YA books involving fandom due to overwhelming secondhand embarrassment, so kudos to that.
(However, I am so overwhelmingly glad that 'promposals' were not a Thing when I was a Youth. SO GLAD.)
This book is not as cute as Simon, which might be a pro or a con depending on where you're standing. Leah is a much angrier character than Simon, and while the book could still fall pretty squarely into the category of rom-com, it's significantly less tropey and comes down more heavily on the coming-of-age aspect of the story.
But: it's nonetheless a rom-com. And, as rom-coms do, it ends with a triumphant Getting Together in spite of all the obstacles standing in the way of our protagonists. I'm super good with the triumphant Getting Together, but the book does set up an awful lot of dominoes that are definitely going to fall once the Getting Together happens, and then just ... stops before they hit? Our kids agree to face the fallout, and then we're at an epilogue and in the epilogue everything is totally one hundred percent fine.
And maybe that's okay, rom-com-wise! It's not like I really wanted to see all the dominoes fall and hit everyone in the face, it definitely wasn't going to be a fun time, and -- especially in queer rom-coms -- sometimes you do just want to see kids have a fun time. But structurally speaking a part of me feels like if you're going to establish stakes then at least some of the results of those stakes need to actually happen on-page.
Anyway, structural doubts aside: Albertelli is extremely good at writing teenagers. Her high school friend group dynamics feel so believable and messy and complicated! Everybody is friends with a whole bunch of people who aren't necessarily friends with each other! She even successfully writes about Teens Engaging in Fandom in a way that was not (to me) cringey, and I normally cannot even contemplate reading YA books involving fandom due to overwhelming secondhand embarrassment, so kudos to that.
(However, I am so overwhelmingly glad that 'promposals' were not a Thing when I was a Youth. SO GLAD.)
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Date: 2018-09-01 03:31 pm (UTC)