What I loved about this book is that not a single page of it was boring. Every page is a page-turner. There wasn’t a moment when I did not feel the butterflies in my stomach go wild for the pure and unsolicited feelings our main character develops throughout the story.

I received a complimentary copy of Date Me, Bryson Keller by Kevin van Whye from Random House Books For Young Readers through Netgalley. All opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. Date Me, Bryson Keller was released today on May 19th!
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The whole school is obsessed with the dare: each week Bryson Keller must date someone new, the first person who asks him out on Monday morning. One Monday morning when the fervor of students waiting on a late Bryson manages to mess up Kai's day and possibly his whole year, Kai surprises Bryson and himself by asking him out. Bryson agrees to date Kai in secret for a week. Kai finds himself liking Bryson more than he expected and having his first boyfriend is certainly nice even if it's fake. Bryson is the first person Kai has come out to and, if nothing else, Kai feels he's found an unexpected friend, but sometimes the relationship feels so real.
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This book was absolutely adorable. I loved Kai, I loved Bryson, and I loved the way their relationship progressed. The fake dating trope is used well in this book and it definitely has warm, fuzzy Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda vibes for the first 75% or so of the book. Then, bam, real life issues enter the story. This is a great book for anyone who wants a sweet LGBTQ+ romance with a POC main character, but is prepared to have that warm and fuzzy romance bubble popped by the end of the book. Trigger warnings for: homophobia, bullying, and the public outing of a LGBTQ+ individual. Still, overall, this book did make me very happy.

Well, I have mixed feelings about this one. One the one hand it really was super cute with relatable characters and an important moral lesson. On the other hand it was often cliche and hitting me over the head with the message. I would have liked a little more substance and development.

In "Date Me, Bryson Keller" Kevin van Whye comes close to the spirit of "Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda - and readers of the latter will doubtlessly enjoy this one. The bright, plucky narrator is trying to navigate high school without coming out, believing college will offer a safer and more welcoming atmosphere than private school. All the stories he tells to protect his secret and all of his caution go out the window when "the cool kid" Bryson Keller takes a dare to date anyone who asks him out. My sole critique for this one would be that it tries to hard to tick all the representational boxes with the characters without always engaging with what those identity markers might mean. The narrator's voice, however, is winning and clear - and you'll be rooting for him as you turn the pages!

Date Me, Bryson Keller by Kevin van Whye took me on an emotional rollercoaster: anxious excited highs, some sudden stomach-in-your-throat drops, and an exhilarating conclusion! I loved it and highly recommend for anyone looking for a good fake dating, YA romance, and coming out story.

Premise:
Mr. Hot & Popular, Bryson Keller, thinks that dating in high school is pointless because it doesn’t last and says “No offense, but I could probably date someone new every week if I wanted.” You see where this is going, right? His friends dare him to try it; the first person to ask him out on Monday gets Perfect Boyfriend Bryson til Friday.

Our Hero:
Kai Sheridan is a mixed race, closeted gay Senior whose friend group slightly overlaps with Bryson’s. After a frustrating Monday morning that Bryson inadvertently ruins by simply existing (it’s not really his fault, poor guy), Kai impulsively says the magic words, “Date me, Bryson Keller.” And the ride begins!

I am extremely sensitive to awkwardness and secondhand embarrassment while reading, so this book definitely had me tossing down my phone every couple pages to quietly freak out (“OH MY GOD. AHHHH”) before continuing. So adorable, but so awkward!!! And yet, I was totally invested and needed to see what happened!

No spoilers for plot, but I have to say that I appreciated how the story didn’t rely on upsetting the balance of their relationship for conflict. I mean, there was a lot to work through, but the story really gave Kai space to work on some issues with his life that were not about Bryson. High school is just the entry point into adulthood and, as Bryson points out, things from high school don’t always last forever. Family, identity, ambitions—those evolve and grow and I’m glad that Kai and Bryson got to work through things with each other for support without making it about their relationship.

I just really loved it and wanted to squee over the whole thing to the world!

P.S. I read the author’s note and it was amazing to see him cite for inspiration the manga that actually brought this book to my attention! A couple months ago, I read Seven Days: Monday - Sunday by Venio Tachibana & Rihito Takarai and I happened to see the blurb for Bryson Keller soon after. I loved that story, so the idea of getting more and a different take on it was super exciting. Kevin van Whye, you succeeded!

*Thank you to Netgalley and Random House for the review copy!*

My Thoughts:

Date Me, Bryson Keller was such a sweet and cute love story, and while I expected this, it also delivered a depth to it that gave me so much more! Bryson Keller appears to be the stereotypical wealthy, and popular sports star. At Fairvale Academy, all the girls fawn over him, and all of the guys want to be his friend.

While at a classmate's party, Bryson accepts a dare. He will date the first person to ask him out at the beginning of each week for five days. This dare will span for three months, and if at any time Bryson doesn't get asked out or gets tired of dating, he loses the bet. The price of losing is having to forsake his beloved white jeep, and instead riding the school bus for the rest of senior year.

Kai Sheridan has known he was gay for several years, but has been in the closet. He's not popular like his best friends Donnie and Priya, but prefers to stay under the radar of his classmates. On a whim, Kai asks Bryson out, and thus begins an adventure in to self- discovery, friendship, romance, heartache, and best of all, love...

I adore the fake relationship trope, and was so excited for Kai to have the chance to experience a fake boyfriend/undercover relationship. It was obvious from the beginning that there was so much more to Bryson than Kai had originally thought. As Kai learned more about the many layers that made up Bryson, I fell in love with him, right alongside Kai. Bryson was very thoughtful, caring, compassionate, and governed his life by a strong sense of fairness. The strong friendship that Bryson and Kai developed had me excited and giddy, as I saw it begin to bloom into more!

Kai was trying to figure out who he was as a person. He was of mixed ethnicity, as well as being closeted, which lead to his inner struggle. Bryson made him stronger, and braver. He helped Kai find his voice, and the both of them were a strong sense of support for one another. The secondary cast of characters were fantastic. I loved Kai's best friends, as well as Bryson and Kai's families. However, my favorite secondary character was Kai's 13 year old sister, who was like a little mini grown-up. She managed to deliver pep talks, life lessons, and sass, at times when it was needed most! I loved this little girl's spirit, and sense of self.

I could tell that Date Me, Bryson Keller was an #ownvoices story. It came through as being sincere and authentic. This story tugged on my heartstrings, and more than a few times, my husband wanted to know why I was crying. It was such a beautiful story, and I can't recommend it enough. The story balanced out the adorable, sweet and swoon-worthy moments, with the challenges, emotional pain, character growth, and life lessons. If you are looking for your next good read, look no further!

4.5 Stars!

This book was a terrific coming out story. I really loved Kai. He was just a great main character. I really felt like I was in his head the whole time. And Bryson Keller was too adorable for words. This was such a good book!!

Perpetually single Bryson Keller takes the dare to date a new person for one week – the first person who asks him each Monday. The girls all line up – but one fateful day, it’s shy Kai Sheridan who asks Bryson out. Kai isn’t out – and Bryson isn’t gay – but they agree to date on the down low for the week and as their friendship grows so do their feelings.

FINALLY! A book that advertises itself as a rom-com, that is actually a rom-com! That’s not to say this book doesn’t delve into deeper waters or pack an emotional punch – because it does – but it also brings all those first love stomach flutters and secret crush cuteness.

It was interesting to read the contrast between how both Kai and Bryson approach coming out and the responses they get from friends and family. And Kai’s sister, Yazz, deserves the sister of the year award for her brutally honest takedown of her parents. Whoop Yazz!

Bryson is almost too perfect & I’m not sure I ever really understood how the challenge was a big deal but whatever…cute is cute and I neeeeeded this kind of book so I shall ignore the (very) minor quibbles.

Sorry, but it doesn't worked to me. I think I am too old or I am being annoying, because everyone would like this book. But I had some fun reading!

The most honest form of this review would just be a keyboard smash ten thousand characters long, but I don't think that the lovely folks at NetGalley or PRH would find that <i>especially</i> productive, so I'm going to do my best to turn that keysmash into something that can properly convey just how much this book means to me, and how incredible it is.

For one thing - the people saying this book is a beautiful homage to SIMON VS THE HOMO SAPIEN AGENDA? <i>Yes.</i> So rarely do I feel like comp titles hit the nail right on the head, especially for one as well-known and well-loved as SIMON. But this book does it justice. I'd even go so far as to say that in a lot of ways, it handles the topics of coming out - both intentionally or otherwise - even better than SIMON does. If you liked SIMON or its movie adaptation at all, you will <i>love</i> this book.

Kai is amazing. He's believable, he's lovable, he's realistic. He's a teenager. He's such an incredible lens through which to view this story, and the story he has to tell is so important and so familiar to me as a gay guy that had to go through high school closeted in a very socially conservative part of the US. I also really really appreciated the perspective of how my experiences might have changed if I had been mixed race, and that little window of insight into someone else's life and how they live it is the reason I love reading so much. I love Kai with my whole heart, and I absolutely understand why Bryson fell for him.

Speaking of Bryson - oh my <i>God</i>. Never have I ever met a more charming, perfect, flawed, adorable dork of a character. He's incredible. Several times in this book he made me tear up just from how thoughtful and understanding and loving he is - not just to Kai, but to the other people in his life. I would <i>kill</i> to have a Bryson Keller in my life. Seriously. Can I, like, order him on Amazon or something?

And then the ENDING. <spoiler>The ending of this book was so deliciously satisfying. My petty, vengeful heart was singing toward the end. When Kai's mother starting cursing up a storm and got into the car to go lay waste to the people running Kai's school, I damn near let out a cheer.</spoiler> The way love is portrayed in this book - familial love, the love between friends, the love between boyfriends - it's all so beautiful and as nuanced as it ought to be.

<i>I just cannot express to you how much this book means to me.</i> I haven't been affected by something like this since I read RED, WHITE & ROYAL BLUE. Seriously. I've reached the point where the keysmash is wanting to rear its ugly head once again, because coherency is for the birds, so I'll just say this: please please please read this book. Please. You won't regret it.

(Special thanks to the amazing folks over at Random House for the NetGalley arc, and to Carlee for recommending I check this book out!! You were right. This is exactly my jam, and exactly what I needed right now.)

I really enjoyed this book. It was a nice and fast story with very sweet characters. Also The book marks a typical high school story very cliché, but it's a very entertaining story The end of the book was also nice, but I feel it could be more, maybe I would add a sequel and know what else can happen and get to know more the characters, thank you for the opportunity to read this book before your launch.

Let me just say this was so cute. It was full if realistic teens and angsts confused feelings. Not to mention the cute characters

This is a fast read. I thought the premise was very cute. Bryson Keller has to date one person a week for 3 months, and he's required to say yes to the first person who asks him at school on Monday mornings because he's famously against high school relationships. Kai is a closeted schoolmate who asks out Bryson in a spur of the moment decision. This is a fun take on the fake boyfriend trope, but Kai does get outed several times and gets in a fight because of their relationship. The dialogue is stilted at times and I thought the balance of frothy romantic fantasy and the realities of being a closeted teen, unsupported by his parents, was a little out of whack, but a sweet first novel for the author.

5 stars

I received an ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Date Me, Bryson Keller is a sweet LGBTQ+ YA rom-com, in the vein of similar hits like To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before. While it never loses the light charm it starts off with, the book isn’t afraid to tackle the issues of self-discovery and homophobia in a sensitive way.

Kai is a likable protagonist, and I could empathize with his struggles with concealing his sexuality and fearing the judgment and hatred he might be targeted with. And while the family rejection is a factor, I was both shocked and moved at how some of his schoolmates reacted.

Bryson is such a cool guy, and so open to the idea of dating Kai for the dare, and the way his own discovery of his identity is explored is well done. And I liked the frank discussion of how them dating technically didn’t go against the rules, but since they kept it a secret

Phi and it just looked like “two guys hanging out,” by the heteronormative standards through which the dare was originally proposed (even though it wasn’t explicit about it), it seemed like he wasn’t with anyone at first.

This book is a great balance of sweet and fluffy with an exploration of the deeper issues facing LGBTQ+ teens. I recommend it both to teens and adults who are part of the LGBTQ+ community, as well as allies looking for a strong ownvoices read.

I loved this story. This is a sweet coming out story that left me with a full heart and a smile. Our hero Kai Sheridan is a quiet mixed race kid who blushes easily. Kai has known he is gay for a while but is in the closet because of his family and high school. Bryson Keller is Mr. Popularity and king of the soccer pitch. About as opposite as you can be but they work. I’m still smiling.

If there is a page in this book that does not have a cliche or platitude on it I didn't see it. And if there's a single chapter that passes without some clunky detail that is not only superfluous but boring, hey, I guess I missed that too. Example: there was no line in front of the photo booth, so we were able to get in without a wait...well, yeah. Yeah. No line = no wait, that should literally go without saying. And I'll own that this may be a pet peeve of mine but...again, every chapter. Every chapter something like this. Sometimes even interwoven with a cliche/platitude. It almost feels like instead of being written this book should've been cross-stitched. Particularly when I consider that the majority of the word count in this story is dedicated not to character development or description or any kind of action, but rather to reminding the reader that homophobia still exists and that gay people should be allowed to love as openly as straight people can.

First: of course. This is true. 100%. However, because this is a novel, and a novel is meant to tell a story, pausing the action every - oh, I'll be generous: every OTHER chapter - to tell us the moral of said story is a less than enjoyable experience for the reader. Particularly since, in all likelihood, the reader is here because they already agree with these things. Also, like the rest of the writing, I can't say that the wording of this message was ever crafted in a particularly unique or memorable way. It's pat, formulaic, something you've read a hundred times before. And this is true, unfortunately, on the macro level as well.

There is nothing particularly unique in the story itself. The author's note mentions the desire to have a mixed race protagonist find love, but aside from one-sentence mentions in a few of the opening chapters Kai's race barely plays in to the story at all. Perhaps those sentences were meant to be enough to convey his struggle, I don't know. I will say that another thing I found very interesting in the author's note was how the guidance counselor - who we see in one scene, for a bare handful of paragraphs - was written as deliberately incompetent. In this one scene the guidance counselor provides both pamphlets and condoms to Kai and offers words of kindness that read to me as very genuine so I don't know how I'm meant to view that as incompetent. Was it because she'd written the pamphlets herself? Was that meant to imply some sloppiness on her part? But, if that's so, why did van Whye opt to make the literal last line of this book the title of one of the pamphlets? That sends kind of a confused message to me.

This brings me to, perhaps, the biggest problem of this book: characterization. Oh, to be sure, the characterization is consistent...but it's also barely there. The ones who will out Kai are apparent from the start - there is no nuance to these "bad" characters, no real effort at making them three dimensional beyond a barely there motive - and every other character follows this mold. You cannot be surprised at anything that happens here, and it's hard to even enjoy the one thing that should be a given before you even open the book: that Kai and Bryson get together. Because of the lack of characterization there's no tension between Kai and Bryson, nothing to make you really root for these two particular people out of all the people in the world to get together. The cover photo, I'm sorry to say, displays more personality than either character does as they're written.

I really didn't want to be disappointed in this one. I'm in agreement with van Whye that these kinds of stories are important, if not vital. But stories need to be told in a compelling enough way that the reader isn't counting every cliche as they pass or rolling their eyes at yet another detail that did not need to be explained. I'm sure other readers will find great enjoyment and maybe even solace in this book, but this was definitely not for me.

This was such a good book. The characters Kai and Bryson were well written, and the secondary characters helped set the book. In a world where "coming out" is still something that has to happen, this follows a boy, who is not ready to tell the world. A definite must read!
PS. The only reason for 4 stars is because I would have loved an epilogue!

LOVED THIS BOOK. Amazing, believable, great for anyone questioning. Great romance and characters. Can't recommend enough!

This book was ADORABLE.

First of all, I love the fake dating trope, so I was excited when I read the synopsis! And the book itself did not disappoint.

It's about this teenage boy, Kai, who is in the closet, he hasn't tell anybody that he's gay. Then there's this guy, Bryson Keller, who is very popular and is currently on a dare in which, each week, he has to date a different person. The most important rule is that the person has to ask Bryson to date them, and he has no choice but to agree.

This is a school dare and every girl in dying to date Bryson, but with just a few weeks left in the semester, Kai unexpectedly asks Bryson to date him. Bryson agrees and HERE IT BEGINS.

Just as I said at the beggining, this book was just too adorable and cute. I also would say is lighthearted, but it approaches some serious themes too. Near the end my heart was breaking for these sweet boys.

I also loved Bryson Keller with all my life, he was like a Golden Retriever kind of person, I swear! He was always so supportive and kind and honest and HE HAS NOT A SINGLE BAD BONE IN HIS BODY. Which made him unbeliebably perfect. It was kind of unsettling for me, to be honest. On one hand I was enchanted by him, but on the other it bothered me a little that he had NO flaws. Not in the inside or in the outside. He was simply perfect.

The other thing that sometimes bothered me was that there where scenes that really made me cringe because of the dialogue. I don't think real people talk like the characters in this book. And I'm usually not bothered by dialogue! But in this book there were some specific ones that really roll my eyes.

Other than that, I really liked it and would recommend it. It will make you smile and your heart will melt. A more in dept review will come soon in my Youtube Channel.

I was excited to read this YA MM story - I saw the the comparison to a manga and the controversy around it and I admit it does sound very similar to what I read here. I just can't say how similar they really are since I never read the graphic novel people refer to. Fact is, this world needs love and more books that teach tolerance and acceptance and Kevin van Whye's story definitely does that.
There are still people who have to fight just to exist, just to love. Just as there are still people who will go out of their way to make that very simple human right something unattainable.

These two boys are cute beyond words. Bryson is a wonderfully kind, young man with a heart full of love. I liked that he was open enough to explore his feelings for Kai, that he wasn't ashamed but embraced them. It may not be completely realistic to be so accepting of your own "otherness" since people are scared of being an outcast, which is a high possibility, still, in this time and age, however, I'm sure there are some unicorns out there who may be just like Bryson.
“I feel like everything finally makes sense now. You. Me. Us.”

Kai is the a little awkward guy, still deep in the closet. Not even his parents know about his homosexuality. He wants to come out on his own terms which, I think every member of the LBGT community has a right to. Every attempt at forcing this on someone is a huge dealbreaker and should be harshly condemmed so it was satisfying to see how all the culprits and those who hurt Kai got what they deserved.

The writing feels very much the way it's supposed to for the YA genre. These kids talked like teenagers, sometimes awkwardly, but they also acted quite maturely.

The last 25% of the book stirred up some anger and sadness for how Kai was being treated. It became pretty emotional and I actually felt that sting in my nose that is the precursor for tears.

DATE ME, BRYSON KELLER wasn't just cute, it was also educational, heartwarming and honest. It is tangible that the author draws from his own experience and shows that homophobia is still very much a big issue, even though the world has become a little more accepting. It's just not enough. It shouldn't matter who you love. Love doesn't hurt anyone so why the hate?
Gay means happy, too, you know.