What If It’s Us, Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera

My review of What If It’s Us by Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera. This is a fantastic read about two boys finding each other in a moment and fumbling their way through a romance.

What If It’s Us, Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera

Themes: Contemporary, LGBTQIA+, Romance

Reading Format: Paperback

Pages: 437

4 STARS

I went into this book expecting great things, characters who were going to be too cute for words and a romance to be jealous of. I left with a four-star opinion, but none of the things I went in to find.

I’m just going to quickly address this… I didn’t really like either of the main characters. I especially didn’t like Arthur, which is a shame because he has attributes that I’d usually enjoy! I ended up just finding him very annoying. But more than that, these characters didn’t seem to have any chemistry and the relationship seemed quite forced. That being said, I think that could have been intentional as the running theme is the universe brought these two together. But I think that could have been the reason they were trying to make it work vs actually really clicking with each other. There, I’ve said it.

Now that’s out the way, I loved this story very much. I loved the constant Hamilton references, I loved the excitement of New York and the variety of characters. I loved Ben’s relationship with his best friend Dylan, that was best friend goals for sure. I love how close best friends are in literature, it’s a platonic love I’m always happy to read about.

“All history should be taught through rap by Lin-Manuel Miranda”

Writing wise, this was flawlessly co-written by both Albertalli and Silvera. The chapters are split from Ben’s narrative to Arthurs, so you can really see a difference in the characters and the writing. I definitely like that there are clear character differences, they have had very different experiences and they want the share some together. This book importantly talks about the process of coming out and how it affects people. It highlighted an incredibly good point of how much of a big deal it is for someone to come out, so it shouldn’t just be met with a response of ‘I knew’. This book is about finding your identity and who you want to be – being comfortable with that person.

The ending of this book had me up very late, crying my eyes out and wondering how it got so real. This really resonated with me and where I am in my life at the moment. The emotion was so well connected, the characters so deeply engraved in my heart (even if they annoyed me), that it made the ending all the more real. I saw my own experiences in them and I cried for that reason.

“I know I’m a superior immortal being, but I’m not psychic, so I just got to keep it moving like it’s going to go somewhere good.”

Overall, despite actually getting spoilt for the ending of this book on Instagram, I really enjoyed this. It still managed to surprise me and I felt the story was important, refreshing and real. Now excuse me whilst I go listen to Hamilton and sob because this book is still stuck in my head.