3.5-4. It was a little boring

i loved it! however, i can not stress this enough: look up the trigger warnings before picking up!

We sway an disappear in each other's arms, and
"So Far Away" starts crooning through the speaker,
and for one moment in time, two lonely astronauts
floating in space finally find each other.

I truly do not have words for this book. The emotions James’ writing evoked in me at different times was palpable going so far as to making me put the book down so that I could put some distance between me and all the characters.
The story starts with Johnathan Collins. A high school age boy who’s self described awkward phase is something I think anyone can relate to...or maybe just us nerds? One of the most powerful parts of the book was how the author uses the intensities of growing up in the 60’s-70’s era. A time when some people were talking about free love and some were talking about war and hate. The subtle parallels the authors manages to slip into the story is truly inspired.
Yes this story is about Collins going through what I can only describe as a horror of heinous proportions in our medical science -conversion therapy- but it’s also about his and those around him figuring out their role in acceptance (or not in some cases) of otherness in their lives. Collins spends much of the story thinking there is something wrong with him and the reader is going through that with him. We have been made aware of some bullying at school, but he’s ok, he has Starla and as long as they have each other, everything will be fine. But then Starla is getting involved in her own protests and isn’t around as much. Then enters Web, a strong quiet Native American Indian who’s story is just as complicated or more so than Collins’.
I loved Web the moment he was introduced. He’s cool, calm and collected (and gorgeous, ow) from Collins’ perspective, but then why is he hiding in the bathroom..? I love him for so many reasons. To some he may appear brooding, but to Collins he is soft and deep and full of intrigue. His story is complex from the start making him more than just a simple love interest and I think I love that most about him. He’s someone I want Collins to be around. I actually wish I could’ve gotten to know him more. I feel we only scratched the surface of this character, but alas that is the nature of peripheral characters. *sigh*
I cannot emphasize more how much I loved this book. Thank you James for writing a novel who’s characters I want to hang out with and be around more. Your ability to write people and emotions has me hooked. Enjoy this story. Read. Laugh. Smile. Cry. Be.

every other line of this is completely out of pocket. this shit had me blubbering like a baby.

Oh man, I have lots of weird feelings about this book. (I'm probably going to lightly spoil the book in this review btw)

Honestly, my reading experience with this book was overall positive. Like, I flew threw it, it had its moments, and I liked some stuff about it. I wasn't bored or too annoyed to enjoy it. There's just. So many little annoying details in there that I couldn't ignore.

First of all, the writing style. It was actually something I was kind of dreading from reviews I'd read before picking it up. That the writing style was annoying and juvenile and that the many random ellipses, all caps, and italics would be jarring. And honestly, this didn't really end up being a big flaw for me. Sure, I kinda tended to skip the slammedtogetherwords and some of the italics sections. But I got used to it and it didn't overtly bother me. I get why it would be annoying to some people though. I'm just pretty flexible when it comes to writing styles I think, unless it's extremely flowery prose, then my brain is out. So, first thing I thought I might not like about this was actually okay. Good, right? Yeah, well.

Another thing I was a little anxious about was the main topic: conversion therapy, electroshock therapy. I was both interested in reading a book about this and super worried I wouldn't be able to get through it. It ended up being okay for me. Like, there are very violent scenes and it's definitely not going to agree with everyone, but personnally I got through them okay. I was a little more iffy about how... positive the psychatrist representation seemed to be? It disturbed me a little that she was presented as this overall good person who electroshocks her patients but feels pain for them and whatever and then searches for other treatments for at the end change her mind completely like 'actually gay is good I'm sorry'. I think this might be personal, because I get how people might enjoy to see the psychatrist being tortured about this all and change her mind for the better but like. I didn't buy it. It annoyed me.

Let's talk about another detail that I could not stop thinking about all along the book. Every character that is morally bad/that Jonathan doesn't like is ugly, scarred or otherwise unpleasant to the eyes/ears. I viscerally hate the trop of the scarred/ugly character being a monstrous asshole while everyone who is nice is pretty. I don't like it. It's bad. It's super obvious in both Jonathan's dad and Hal. Jonathan's dad USED TO be beautiful before his wife died and then he became worse and worse both physically and morally. And like, really? My god. Also Hal, the bisexual character who tries to sexually assault the MC, is constantly described as ugly and scarred and rat-like. I don't like this trope! It's bad! Also unnecessary to have your only bi character being a predator but whatever.

I don't want to go into the Native rep too in detail, but I encourage you to read reviews by Native American readers. I started searching for those when I started to feel the rep might be off, because I don't have the knowledge to pick up on all the potential microaggressions. I'll just say what I thought was obvious : there is so much anti-Indigenous racism in here. Slurs, hate crimes, violence. And they're thrown around a little too freely, with not a lot of unpacking of those. And it's written by a white cis gay. So I don't know. There's also this line by Jonathan where he wishes everyone stopped seeing each other through labels and only see each other as equal Starfolk, and he says that to Web, and I rolled my eyes so hard.
This is one of the ownvoices review I read about the Native rep btw: https://indigosbookshelf.blogspot.com/2019/09/ziggy-stardust-me-by-james-brandon.html
It goes more into detail about the rep, and how the Native and Two-Spirit rep, and how Web's character feels like it's there to teach Jonathan to accept his sexuality.


About the conversion therapy again! Something I forgot to mention earlier, but the electroshock therapy has super traumatizing consequences on Jonathan, and for most of the book they felt real and understandable. Then, Jonathan and Web have sex. Jonathan powers through the pain for this, which, okay, your choice of course. But then he almost never again feels the consequences of electroshock therapy, and it felt a little bit too close of 'cured of my traumatic experience by love and sex' for comfort.

Anyway, outside of all the little things that bugged me, I also didn't feel very strongly about the romance in the first place. I overall enjoyed Jonathan's character. I feel like Web didn't get to develop on his own enough, though. I'm a little disappointed that the best friend character just disappeared for most of the book, strong friendships can usually make a book with a romance so much stronger. She was vaguely there at the beginning and at the end, but not enough for me to believe she was Jonathan's best friend? I don't know.

My reading experience was okay. Lots of little things bugged me, but as I said, I flew through it and didn't really want to put it down, and it had some really strong moments around the conversion therapy theme especially. It is very, very violent, though. Homophobic and racist/anti-indigenous slurs, hate crimes, police brutality, violent bullying, etc. There's a lot of queer pain in there, too, and the queer joy feels a little pale in comparison. I would only recommend if you're prepared to read about traumatizing queer history, queer pain, and to acknowledge that Native American readers have criticized the rep in this book for many reasons (also like... the author's note goes something like 'I knew nothing about this event in Indigenous history before reading about it so I decided to make it a significant part of my story about a white boy', and... yeah. You know.)