Only Mostly Devastated || ARC Review

Welcome to my review of my first 5 star book of the year! Honestly I feel like I have been having a hard time finding books that I am actually enjoying which has caused my reading to slow down a lot. So I’m so happy to be able to share a book that I loved.

Thank you Netgalley and all involved for gifting me an E-ARC of this book. This does not affect my opinion of the book in any way.

Warning spoilers ahead!

Author: Sophie Gonzales

Publisher:  Wednesday Books

Published on: March 3rd 2020

Number of Pages: 228

Bought, Borrowed or ARC: ARC from Netgalley

Where can you get it?

Again, I make no money off of these links. These are simply for your convenience.

Amazon: $12.79

Barnes and Noble: $12.79

Books-A-Million: $12.77

Book Depository: $9.82

SIMON VS. THE HOMO SAPIENS AGENDA meets CLUELESS in this boy-meets-boy spin on Grease

Summer love…gone so fast.

Ollie and Will were meant to be a summer fling—casual, fun, and done. But when Ollie’s aunt’s health takes a turn for the worse and his family decides to stay in North Carolina to take care of her, Ollie lets himself hope this fling can grow to something more. Dreams that are crushed when he sees Will at a school party and finds that the sweet and affectionate (and comfortably queer) guy he knew from summer isn’t the same one attending Collinswood High.

Will is more than a little shocked to see Ollie the evening of that first day of school. While his summer was spent being very much himself, back at school he’s simply known as one of the varsity basketball guys. Now Will is faced with the biggest challenge of his life: follow his heart and risk his friendships, or stay firmly in the closet and lose what he loves most.

I’m not going to lie I put off starting only mostly devastated for a long time. I really wanted to read it but I was afraid that I wouldn’t stand up to what I thought it was going to be. I’m so glad that I was wrong about that because Only Mostly Devastated is my first five star book of the year. I loved everything about it from Will and Ollies relationship to Ollie’s friendship with the girls and his relationship with his parents.

I personally have only known a couple of people affected by cancer and it’s never affected me in the way that affected Ollie and his parents but I think it was really great of them to uproot their entire lives to go help with their family. I was rooting for Ollie’s Aunt to get better the whole time but I really appreciate the way that grief was portrayed in this book. When his aunt first dies and Ollie’s mom wants to watch movies and is laughing all the time Ollie is uncomfortable. but sometimes that’s what grief is really like. It’s different for everybody and I’m glad that we got to see that in this book.

When I first started reading I wasn’t sure if I was going to ship the boys together just because it seemed like they had caused each other so much pain that maybe they were better off without each other. The more I got into the book the more I realized that a lot of what they were doing that was hurting each other was to protect themselves. What I was in high school I had a girlfriend and I wanted to come out to our parents and she wasn’t ready. I’m glad now knowing what I know that I didn’t push but I wanted to. Coming out is a big and scary thing and everybody has a different experience so I’m glad that Ollie apologized for outing Will. I also appreciate that Laura stood up for her friend to try to make sure that he wasn’t outed.

There was a lot that I enjoyed about this book and I think that if you like contemporary young adult books, especially those that focus more in the senior to early college range ages you should definitely check out this book.

Let me know if you end up checking out this book and what you think!