This is a cute romance although I felt like the pacing was a little slow. I would recommend this book to some friends, but overall the stereotypes were too much for me.

When I first read the blurb, I was instantly sold. Love, Simon + Clueless + Grease = yes, please! Growing up, Grease was one of my favorite movies ever, although I don't think I understood the actual plot until was about 15.

Only Mostly Devastated has some striking similarities to Love, Simon, too. An adorable romance, check. An interesting and lovable friend group that can sometimes be terrible, check! Yet, despite these similarities, this book holds its own and is a solid addition to the list of YA rom-coms.

The story?

As the blurb mentions, Ollie has just had the summer of his life at his family's lake house. Unfortunately, his aunt, who is sick and who his family has been helping out all summer, isn't getting any better and his family decides to stay in North Carolina more permanently. Although Ollie wants to be there for his aunt, he is not thrilled to be moving to a new state and uprooting the life he knows back home in California. Except, he realizes that there is a better chance of him staying in contact with his summer love, Will.

As you may have guessed, it's not long until Ollie runs into Will at his new high school. Things take a turn when Ollie realizes Will isn't everything he imagined him to be, and that their relationship is more complicated than he anticipated. In fact, their relationship may have just become nonexistent.

The characters?

Ollie, our narrator, is extremely likable.He's awkward but never afraid to be himself. Best of all, he's always there for his friends and family. Okay, it's basically impossible to not love him and support him throughout the entire book.

While Ollie is the perfect protagonist, Will is less likable, especially when he seems like two totally different people. That said, it is easy to see Will's perspective and root for the two of them to get together.

Ollie's family dynamics were, perhaps, my absolute favorite aspect of the book. His parents are the perfect amount of loving yet humanly flawed. And his relationship with his cousins is adorable and realistic, especially the more frustrating moments when they are being the over-energetic monsters that kids sometimes are.

All in all?

Only Mostly Devastated is a delightful, heartfelt contemporary that serves up some true-to-life family moments, an adorable romance, and some weirdly awesome friendships. While this book didn't completely steal my heart the way I had hoped, it did capture my attention and prove to be a truly lovely book. If this sounds like your type of book, please pick this one up!

This was such a cute, heartwarming read. It was a big change from I normally read, and a welcomed one at that! This touches on so many issues that are important to today's teens. Loved this!

I'm so glad I requested this one because it was soooo good. This heartwarming read was everything I hoped it would be.

What I loved about this book:

1. This is a LGBQ romcom that had me laughing, crying, and feeling all the feels. This book touches on accepting yourself for who you are and who you love, but it also showsu how stressful it can be for someone to come out of the closet. In my opinion there are not enough LGBQ romances published and I hope this one inspires more to be written and more to be publushed.

2. Y'all had me when you compared this one to Grease. I absolutely loved the movie growing up so it's not shocking I devoured this book in one sitting. Will and Ollie have the picturesque summer romance, but the problem is Will didn't expect Ollie to stay. When Ollie finds out that the kind affectionate Will is closeted and kind of jerk, he's heartbroken. As they both try to figure out who they are and who is important to them you'll fall for both characters the same way you did Danny and Sandy.

3. This book had depth I didn't expect and touches on the complexity of grief and how everyone processes it differently. Trigger warning this book has the C word in it and I may have ugly cried at times.

If you're looking for a great LGBQ romcom that has depth and great character growth, you should definitely pick this one up. It was a well written novel with complex characters you'll love. This was my first novel by this author, but it definitely won't be my last.

A delightfully fun read with engaging characters who had depth and complexity as they handled the various complicated nuances of learning about sexuality in a small town

I was pretty devastated for much of this book, in a good and sad way. It’s marketed as a cute rom com but it deals with pretty serious life issues including high school bullying that was very impactful. There is a light at the end of the tunnel though, it just takes a bit to get there. There’s plenty of characters here that will resonate, LGBTQ+, latinx, feminine power and much more. This was like a cleansing for me with all of the different emotions that it made me feel, it was cathartic and I’m glad I went out of my comfort zone for it.

I received this ARC ebook from NetGalley.

I loved this book! I thought it was such a fun take on such a classic story. It’s the typical summer love unexpectedly following into the real world. This book makes you laugh, cry, get a little stressed, cry some more, but still end up loving it all. I also may be a little biased here because it’s branded as Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda meets Clueless in a spin on Grease. Like these are all my favorites so I went in with high expectations and they were met.

Thank you Netgally and the author for the gifted copy. All thoughts are completely my own.

When I read the blurb apparently I blocked out the Grease part. I am not a fan of Grease at all. On that note I enjoyed this book. It had humor, sarcasm, young love.

If you're looking for a cute read with sarcastic characters I'd suggest this one.

Only Mostly Devastated is a warm, funny, sweet book about young love and feeling the need to hide who you truly are. The blurb describes it as a modern day telling of Grease and it couldn’t be more accurate. With our protagonist Ollie we see the story from the eyes of Sandra-Dee…except he is a little bit emo and a boy and gay.

Undercurrent to the love story you have a tale of finding your tribe. Ollie is in a new school in a completely different state and he is struggling to find his place. Throw on top of that another story of a sick relative and you really do feel that Ollie has too much going on for someone so young.

I really rate Only Mostly Devastated. It is a book that deals with difficult issues but also gives you the feel good factor. The writing style is easy and you don’t feel like you are being challenged by reading it but feel like you are one of Ollie’s gang of friends, going through things alongside him.

Only Mostly Devastated by Sophie Gonzales is available now.

For more information regarding Sophie Gonzales (@sgonzalesauthor) please visit www.sophiegonzalesbooks.com.

For more information regarding St Martin’s Press (@StMartinsPress) please visit their Twitter page.

For more information regarding Hachette Children’s Group (@HachetteKids) please visit www.hachettechildrens.co.uk.

For more information regarding Hodder Children’s Books (@HoddereBooks) please visit their Twitter page.

Inspired by my favorite movie ✔

Cute love story ✔

Everyone loving it ✔✔

I was gifted a copy off Only Mostly Devastated by Panmacmillansakids and Pan MacMillan on Netgalley....

I so wish I could say I loved this book. I wish I could say I couldn't wait to see what happens to the characters. But in truth to I did enjoy the book but I didn't love it....

I did love Olie and could related to him. Iwas just as mad at Will as he was.

Only Mostly Devastated is is a cute read where you don't have to concentrate on the book and its plot. Its perfect for a weekend read.

⭐⭐⭐ out of 5 statrs

This book has an adorable romance but also has depth to it with the exploration of grief. I do wish there was more show than tell when it came to the romance, but I still enjoyed this book, nonetheless! Definitely recommend it.

I received a free digital copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Super cute romance that will keep you all giggly and romantic through the whole thing. It was simply adorable. I absolutely shipped the main characters from page one. I giggled and swooned through the whole thing. This was an adorable read.

Thank you kindly to the author, the publisher, and NetGalley for this review copy.

Although I had some issues, as it went on I liked it. The writing style was good, the subject was better, and the romance was best of all! It was definitely worth the read.

Ollie goes to North Carolina to help out his sick aunt and her family. While there, he meets Will, his very own Prince Charming. They decide to spend the summer together before Ollie leaves. But as it turns out, Ollie is staying. And lo and behold, Ollie goes to the same school as Will. Who turns out not as Princely as Ollie thought...

Hands down, the best part about this book was the rep! I loved all of it. There's PCOS, there's a fat character, there's bi characters, the love interest is a person of color! I just loved it. All the tags from this is what made me want to read this, and I am so glad those tags crossed my screen.

I also loved that this was funny. Ollie was hilarious. There were times when I found myself actually laughing out loud. It definitely made up for the way I initially felt about him...

At first I didn't care for Ollie OR Lara. Ollie kept pressuring Will to do all of these things but didn't really do anything for Will. Especially have his back on something so huge. But the situation was discussed, and I felt much better about it in the end. I would have liked it more had it been discussed a little earlier and I wasn't hating him for it most of the book, but still, I thought he was ok. As for Lara, I get that you were going through some things, and that was your armor, but still, we don't wanna see Fat shaming ok. And you couldn't even apologize for it? I wanted someone to slap her.

The romance itself though was so swoony cute. I found that even though Will wasn't being his Princely self, that I still shipped them from beginning to end. And at that one part at the end, I actually squealed out loud! I thought they were so cute together. I also found myself squealing at the flash backs and that one time when they were eating. But I don't want to tell all the swoony parts lol

This was a surprise to me. I chose this one because a few people read it and really liked it. But after reading this, I can definitely say more people need to. This swoony book is just what you need to make it through this quarantine!

I could not love this book more!

The cast of characters is diverse and complex. Toxic masculinity and girl shaming are talked about! The friend group is empowering. The fear of judgment about coming out from loved ones. The discussion of life and love are so meaningful! I just absolutely loved everything this book talked about.

The only thing is that it takes 70-100 pages to really start to care for Ollie and the girl's and I found that how a certain character who came out as queer wasn't realistic to what happens to everyone. (The book already has it's truly sad and heartbreaking moments so I understand we didn't need more sadness, haha but it would have been nice to talk about their privilege just a little.)

In the end, they are all lovable characters just trying to find their happiness.
This was incredible can't wait to do a reread!

Favorite quote:
Maybe our Happily Ever After hadn’t worked on the first shot. And maybe Happily Ever Afters weren’t a singular event. Maybe they were something you had to work at, and build, and never give up on, as long as they were something you still wanted.

Well that was lovely. Ollie is such an endearing character and seeing him choose himself first, fabulous. A lot of diversity in here, tough life moments, and some squishy love.

This was a sweet book and a really good reimagining of Grease but queer. Full review to come on my blog soon

I received a copy of Only Mostly Devastated in exchange for an honest review!

I'm gonna be honest with you, I should have written this review AGES ago, because now this is about to be the lamest review of all time. I barely remember this book -- which kinda knocks it down on points for me, because it's forgettable. I'm looking at my notes & it's making me even more confused as to what happened in Only Mostly Devastated.

However, according to my notes, I wasn't here for the relationship in this book which is definitely a bummer, seeing as it's LGBTQ+ rep. However (& I remember this part!!) I enjoyed the main character's friendship with Laura.

That's it. That's the review. I warned y'all it was gonna be lame. It just didn't really stand out for me, which in turn, made it a forgettable read.

California teen Ollie is spending his pre-senior-year summer in North Carolina, where his family has temporarily relocated to help Ollie's Aunt Linda - who is fighting cancer - and her family. What Ollie didn't expect, beyond babysitting his aunt's kids, was a summer fling, which comes in the form of fellow high schooler Will Tavares, a hunky basketball player whom Ollie shares a blissful romance with. The end-of-summer goodbyes are painful, but even more painful is when Ollie learns his parents have rented a home in Aunt Linda's town indefinitely, and he will be spending his senior year in North Carolina away from his friends and having to adjust to a brand-new school, due to Aunt Linda's condition becoming worse. Biting the bullet, Ollie - openly-gay but with no idea how that may roll in NC - arrives guarded and edgy his first day for classes, but quickly meets a trio of girls who befriend him; so much so, he comes out to them and even shyly tells them about his summer romance (well, he was dying to tell someone!). One of the girls, Lara, invites Ollie to go with them to a back-to-school party that night at a friend's house ... where Ollie is shocked to find that Lara has actually set him up, for who else should be at that same party but Will! Will, along with a gaggle of Will's very hetero basketball team buddies, and when his summer love gives Ollie the cold shoulder it becomes obvious that Will is freaked (not happily so) by Ollie's presence as the newest kid in school ... and even more obvious that this year just might be more torturous for the broken-hearted Ollie than even he had ever dreamed. Only Mostly Devastated is a loose retelling of Grease that works very well on the page, largely due to its wonderful, endearing lead character; we've all felt Ollie's confusion and pain of first love, and writer Sophie Gonzales keeps his fresh, funny voice one that always (thankfully) falls short of becoming annoying or whiny. Openly-out Ollie's ups and downs with a closeted Will come across very authentic on the page, as does Will and the engaging supporting cast of characters that make up the boys's friends and family. The subplot of Aunt Linda's cancer plight and how Ollie deals with that as well pulls at the heartstrings without ever becoming maudlin or melodramatic. Best yet, when you think you know how and when things will develop with Ollie and Will, the book still manages a wholly believable, touching finale that may seem too pat for some but brought a tear to this jaded reader's eye. Wonderfully done, my only (very minor) complaint being the author's use of the occasional British word or phrase, in Ollie's voice (the book is told from his POV), that would throw me right out of the story by not sounding like a typical California/American teen's verbiage. That's a small bump-in-the-road, though, to a wonderful, humorous, and romantic love story whose main characters leap from the page to find a place in your heart. 4.5/5 stars

NOTE: I received a free ARC of this title from NetGalley and the publisher, in exchange for an honest review.

Wow, this was such a cute book!

So this is essentially a story is a high-school rom-com about a popular and unpopular kid falling in love. I know it sounds cliched, but this was such a fun and fast-paced read! I really enjoyed it! Ollie and Will both have very distinct personalities and are each amazing as individuals, but together you really begin to see the chemistry as their relationship flourishes.

This book also deals with some heavy issues which I thought were very well done. And the writing really bought the characters to life. Overall, a great read and highly recommend!!

A big thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for providing me an advanced reader’s copy of “Only Mostly Devastated“. I loved reading this book! Even though it is a typical high-school rom-com of the popular guy falling for the unpopular one, it is written in such a charming and sweet manner, that I could not put it down!

The main leads Will and Ollie light up the story! Ollie is wonderful as the funny, over-thinking, dorky, awkward guy and I loved him from the first page. I really hated Will in some scenes because of how he treats Ollie, but at the same time, you can understand what he is going through. After finishing the book, I still didn’t like Will as much as Ollie. But I loved chemistry between the two! All the supporting characters are amazing in their own way. I was surprised that Lara turned out to be one of my favorite characters, because I hated her in the beginning. Aunt Linda was wonderful as well and I felt her moments with Ollie so endearing.

I have not read any of Sophie Gonzales previous books, but I really loved her style of writing! She truly has a special gift for turning a simple story into an engaging read. Each of the characters is complex and is going through their own issues. Moreover, the author covers some key topics like coping with the loss of a loved one, and coming out. Another point I appreciated was how the book is not overly dramatic or negative. There is no violence or bullying as such, and most of the characters are understanding and sympathetic. While this might not be a realistic scenario, I loved how idyllic it sounded in the story.

Overall, I loved reading “Only Mostly Devastated” and cannot wait to read the author’s future novels! I would definitely recommend it to anyone who wants to read a queer, feel-good, rom-com novel.