Fangirl meets Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda in this funny and poignant coming-of-age novel from New York Times bestselling author Christina Lauren about two boys who fall in love in a writing class—one from a progressive family and the other from a conservative religious community.

Three years ago, Tanner Scott’s family relocated from California to Utah, a move that nudged the bisexual teen temporarily back into the closet. Now, with one semester of high school to go, and no obstacles between him and out-of-state college freedom, Tanner plans to coast through his remaining classes and clear out of Utah.

But when his best friend Autumn dares him to take Provo High’s prestigious Seminar—where honor roll students diligently toil to draft a book in a semester—Tanner can’t resist going against his better judgment and having a go, if only to prove to Autumn how silly the whole thing is. Writing a book in four months sounds simple. Four months is an eternity.

It turns out, Tanner is only partly right: four months is a long time. After all, it takes only one second for him to notice Sebastian Brother, the Mormon prodigy who sold his own Seminar novel the year before and who now mentors the class. And it takes less than a month for Tanner to fall completely in love with him. 

Tanner is self described as a "half-Jewish queer kid" who has now been displaced from California to live in Mormon/LDS populated Provo, Utah. Being bisexual, his progressive parents have warned him of the danger of trusting people there with this knowledge, so he has stepped back into the closet. He is easy-going, smart, and funny. He has a best friend, Autumn, who he loves but is not in love with, and no one has really had a significant effect on him until they end up taking a writing Seminar class.

Sebastian Brother is a writing prodigy from the last semester and is publishing his book, so he is acting as the class TA. He is a Bishop's son from a devout Mormon family with many expectations placed on him. He is a young man of faith and that shapes all of his choices. But he also has his own secrets, confusion, and fear.

When their eyes meet they have a strong reaction. But this is foreign territory for them both. An unexpected crush. Tentative friendship. Forbidden attraction. Stolen moments. Tanner is not sure how to stop wanting to be around Sebastian. And Sebastian does not like labels, and has serious struggles with his own identity.

This is a story within a story. It is a poignant YA coming of age, M/M, first love story dealing with sexual identity and acceptance in the restrictions of religious and family expectations. It's about firsts, friendship, love, self awareness, faith, religious beliefs, trust, and acceptance. It stirs up so many negative feelings of confusion, doubt, fear, disappointment, pressure, anger, frustration, loss, and heartbreak. But also some sweet notions of love, hope, acceptance, support, and humor. The stolen moments where they could just be Tanner and Sebastian without interference warmed my heart. There are many ups and downs, and serious disappointments. They will be forced to face challenges, navigate forbidden feelings, make difficult choices, and determine their own paths.

My heart was hurting, feeling their pain and disappointment, and seeing no easy solution. Sebastian was truly bound to his personal faith, religion, God, duty, and family. While Tanner just wanted to be chosen and loved, and had a family that just did not want to see him get hurt. There are internal struggles, emotional situations, external pressures and expectations that kept robbing them of hope. It is not an easy story to read and makes you feel the emotional turmoil of the characters. 

Can love be enough to go against everything you have ever believed in? And if someone truly loved you would they ask you to?

This was told predominantly in Tanner's point of view as he lived and wrote his story, but it also provides some chapters in Sebastian's. It started out a bit slow for me, but these two gradually wormed their way into my heart and I found myself invested and staying up to finish it. This is totally different than any other Christina Lauren book I have read. But it still has some of that underlying humor and emotion I have come to expect from them. But this has so many important messages that need to be expressed and issues that need to be challenged. It gives enough of a resolved ending, but these characters are still young and I wonder if we might ever see a follow up story. 

I was gifted a copy in exchange for an honest review. 
When you are an openly bi high schooler moving from liberal, open California, to conservative, highly religious Utah, things change for reasons that aren’t always comfortable. Tanner hides his true feelings in order to blend in better in a town where he already stands out, as he is not a member of the LDS church. When he meets the TA in his senior writing seminar, his carefully hidden secret is in danger of being revealed. But there is no way the strict Mormon former student at his high school would be interested in him.

Tanner knows himself, even if he keeps his true self quiet in his new conservative hometown. He is pretty sure his close friends wouldn’t care if he came out as bi, but he also knows his best friend would be hurt. She might be harboring secret feelings for him. I really liked the friendship between Tanner and Autumn. It was real. It was everything a friendship between a boy and a girl faces during high school.

Sebastian faces some of the biggest self-questioning and reflection of any of the characters in this book. I hurt from the beginning watching this relationship blossom, as the biggest conflict was one I could see from a mile away.

The allies developed in so many of the side characters gave hope to what would otherwise feel like an impossible relationship. Tanner and Sebastian find allies all around them, in places they would never have imagined. But even having allies around, there is a lot for Sebastian to have to figure out to decide if he can even have a relationship with Tanner.

Some of the religious focus felt heavy handed, but to someone not familiar with the LDS church it is necessary to set the scenes the characters face. Having grown up in an area with a large LDS population, most of the religious aspects were very familiar to me and grew tedious.

But that being said, religion and the views of religious bodies is a huge plot point in this story, and the way Tanner and Sebastian face their roadblocks are understandable from both of their perspectives.

This was not an easy read by any sense of the word, and there were times I wished it moved faster because it was so heavy. But it was also worth the pain in the way it made me think about stereotypes, religious communities, and family loyalty.

I was gifted a copy in exchange for an honest review.

Christina Lauren is the combined pen name of long-time writing partners/besties/soulmates/brain-twins Christina Hobbs and Lauren Billings. The coauthor duo writes both Young Adult and Adult Fiction, and together has produced fourteen New York Times bestselling novels. Their books have been translated into 30+ languages.

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