4/5

It's 1992, and various students of a Kansas town called Pride navigate their relationships - or lack of them - in their sophomore year at Pride High.

First of a trilogy, and I'll keep reading. The characters share narration duties and are varied and interesting if sometimes a little flat. More of a record of a semester than a story with a single coherent plot - but that's fine.

Honestly Jay Bell does it again. I was a little wary when the main characters were all fifteen? But I immediately fell in love with literally everyone. All of the characters feel unique and real (with the exception of Dave and David but that's the joke). I 500% would've dated Anthony if we were both in high school together. Omar? Best dude bro. Mindy? A loveable idiot who needs to stop falling for gay dudes. Sylvia and Cameron? Both incredible. Ricky? Exhausting but so sweet. He just needs friends!

UGH I finished this at 1am and immediately picked up the second book to keep reading as the second book picks up directly as this one finishes. I'm so excited to see what more shenanigans the Pride High kids get up to!

Update for 3/26/23:

I just re-read this book in anticipation of Book 2: Orange, which I got courtesy of Patreon and will start shortly. During the first reading I found myself confused by portions of the plot, and of course read Something Like Daybreak after, which has huge implications for the characters in this novel, so re-read with that in mind.

It really enhanced the book, knowing what we know about the Something Like characters. Some lines jumped off the page. Cameron loves cats and is older than his years. Omar and his grandmother. Anthony and his music. Some characters don’t quite line up, and others may not yet have arrived, but I really got more out of the book reading it with that context in mind. It really enhances both series.

As to what confused me in the first read, I feel like in Something Like, we crossed decades with characters, many of whom were introduced across novels, well spread out. Red takes place over two months, and while a strong effort is meant to delay characters (we start with Anthony and Omar, get to Cameron later, and other characters have yet to receive a focus) it was difficult for me to track the whole story, especially given that the characters are all lying to each other and all have the wrong end of the stick.

Beyond what’s listed below, some of which didn’t bother me in this read, what did throw me this time was Ricky’s plot with Cameron. When did Ricky figure out who Cameron was? During their BBS conversation, Ricky has no idea who Cameron is at Pride, Cameron says he knows who Ricky’s partner is in journalism class, which is Omar, making Ricky think he knows what happened between them, but Cameron thinks he’s talking to Anthony and whose partner is Mindy. Ricky theorizes who Cameron could be, Cameron asks Anthony if they can talk outside, and Ricky comes outside clearly having figured it out, but was it because someone told him Cameron’s name? It was a big moment for the character and I felt like I was on the outside.

Hopefully going forward, now that we’re getting people on the same page, I’ll be more grounded.

Five full stars. Great stuff.

As I’ve stated in prior reviews, I’m not the target audience, but Jay Bell’s novels are fully accessible and (up until now) have told a wide ranging story over years, from birth until death (and beyond.) Pride High is a chance to slow down the storytelling and focus on the day to day, and overwhelmingly it works very well.

I’ll admit I was anxious by the description when I started, because while we’ve had the opportunity before to delve into one character’s storyline before, we were never dropped in with so many people so at once. It didn’t happen. We start with Anthony, slowly expand to Omar, to Ricky, to Silvia, and beyond. The cast is huge, we’re in everyone’s heads, but I mostly hung in there.

Freely, I admit I was reading another book at the same time and the time away did me no favors. When Whitney remarks that Ricky is a good guy, I blanked on their past interactions. Anthony tells Cameron about Omar’s secret and that breach of trust never really came up later. Ricky was supposed to hang out with Anthony and Omar on a Saturday and I’m not sure if that ever happened, and Ricky feels that Anthony got Omar’s secret from Cameron, when it was really from Omar himself. Life is messy, things happen off screen, people make assumptions, and that the story held together fairly solidly despite obvious efforts to add coincidence and misunderstanding.

I’m assuming Book 2 will start midway through sophomore year, and I’m admittedly excited to see the story roll out in real time.

Recommended!

Addendum - Something Like Daybreak has to be my favorite vignette in the Something Like series. Jay Bell really nailed the right amount of fantasy versus emotion, and the implications of the ending really impact Pride High as well. Excellent stuff.