This book made me realise I am very much not the intended audience for it. But I am fine with that, since I am well aware I’m going into a young adult novel as an adult. This book is written for teen boys who are figuring out their sexuality. And I think that is very valuable. 

I went into this book mostly because I heard that the love interest is Palestinian. Gosh he’s a cutie. Probably my favourite character in the book. The book also goes a little into what it’s like to be Palestinian and live in the US. Not all that much, which is expected and probably also appropriate for a writer who is not Palestinian himself, but still to a degree to raise awareness about the struggles. 

The book teaches a lot of valuable lessons for teens. Enrique seems overly naive sometimes. However, that works great to showcase the dangers that can come from certain mindsets and for the most part the book discusses the issues that arise from it. It never becomes condescending with it, but approaches it with empathy. Sure, they do some stupid things, get themselves in icky situations, but at the end of the day they are just teens trying to figure themselves and the world out and that is okay. And thankfully there are adults and friends to support them along the way. 

Enrique is a very horny character. That is cool, he’s a teenager, teens can be like that. But I did feel uncomfortable at times when it came to some intimate scenes. I felt like they were still a bit too descriptive. Quite frankly, I did not want to know that much about what these teenage characters were doing. 

First and foremost this book is about Enrique’s journey and character development. It deals with his sexuality, romantic feelings and expectations, friendship, identity, homophobia, mental health, and probably some other things that don’t come to mind right now. This book does it in a very real and raw way.