This book was unique and interesting, but I felt that it was a bit immature for me. I do enjoy some young adult fiction, but this one did not do it for me. I had a hard time connecting with the characters, I felt their personalities did not develop well enough. The relationships were interesting, and seemed a good reflection of school these days. I feel that a younger reader may have enjoyed this more than I did.

(Actual rating 3.5 stars.) When I first saw the cover of this book, I immediately liked it! And then I read the synopsis and I was just so excited because it seemed like a fun contemporary read for me. I was right!

If We Were Us is a fun and entertaining read, with similar vibes as Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda!

What I love most about this book is the fact that it's funny, light-hearted, but can still be very gut-wrenching in some parts. It explored the characters' flaws and issues, and their insecurities and mistakes. It was good to see these characters try to deal with them and overcome them by the end of the book. I also particularly adored the friendships and the dynamics between several characters! There's Charlie and Sage, Luke and Sage, and Nick and Charlie!

I did, however, feel like it lacked in the romance department. I wanted more build-up, I wanted more flashbacks, I wanted more details, especially when it came to Nick and Sage's relationship. Nick claimed he had feelings for Sage even before, but I didn't see that nor did I feel it. I needed romance that's believable, romance that will sway me. But in the end, I wasn't fully convinced. So, I was disappointed about that.

Another thing is that, the writing style was okay, but sometimes it left me confused. Several times in the book, there were references to something or someone or some place or event, but those things/persons/places/events were not explained or given primary details.

On the other hand, I love how this book perfectly captured the ridiculously frustrating stereotype/idea that a girl and boy can't be close friends without having feelings for each other. In the story, it has affected families, friends, the whole Bexley school body. This needs to stop, and this story just proves how bad that mentality can be.

Overall, If We Were Us was an entertaining read! I recommend this book to those who are looking for cute, short reads! (And those who are looking for books that has the same vibes as Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda!)

Review on blog to be posted by April 19, 2020.

This novel was such a page turner! I became absolutely engrossed in the lives of Nick, Charlie, Sage and Luke!
It was fun, sad and honest, it reminds me of Becky Albertali’s novels but uniquely K.L. Walthers too!!
I definitely recommend this novel to anyone interested in YA romance.

Wow this debut novel knocked it out of the park with everything I expected this book to me!
Such a great book with writing that made me feel so connected to the characters and e everything they were going through.
I give this book more than 5 stars if I could!

I found the beginning of the book a little lacking with a slow plot and a large cast of characters that felt pretty flat, but ultimately ended up enjoying the story and how easy a read this was

I really enjoyed the lightness to this story the characters were very easy to understand and feel for however I found that they were just a few two many of them and it was hard to keep track of who was who and their relations with the other characters in the story. I did however find that this novel was the perfect book to just pick up, it makes the reader just fall into the story instantly and lose all track of what is going on in the world around them. However at the same time I was expecting more substance to the story I found it a little flat in places and very different from what I was expecting going into this book. This book kept me flip flopping through the whole story so that made it hard to get into. Not my favourite read however it did have some really cute moments
that I really enjoyed, I just wish that there were more of them. I really enjoyed the ending of this book however it was very good at keeping me interested and it was then that I really got involved in the characters. Not to bad overall.

I loved this novel and will be recommending it to everyone I knew, including my students. K.L. Walther's book tells the story of Sage and Charlie, who have been best friends since they were little and are in their final year at boarding school. Charlie has a twin brother named Nick, who has been in love with Sage forever, but the feeling around campus is that Sage and Charlie are meant to be together. Then we add in a new boy, Luke, who is completing a post-grad at the boarding school. The reader watches as Charlie falls in love with Luke and Luke with Charlie, but this is something that Charlie is afraid to admit to his friends, family, and, most importantly, himself. I do not want to give to much away about the plot of this novel, but if you are a fan of Becky Albertalli, you will LOVE this story. I could not put it down, and I want to read the next K.L. Walther book immediately.

It starts off slow and kind of dense, but once the action begins, it's hard to resist the story as it drives forward. It reads as a true epic, one that makes you feel the world really has been reshaped as you read it. Would recommend.

I absolutely adored this book! If you love Simon vs the Homosapiens Agenda, then you should definitely check out this book when it comes out June 1st!!

It is honestly amazing, another book which I'll definitely be buying and rereading more than once.

From friendships and love to hidden truths and secrets, If We Were Us, is a brilliant story following, best friends, brothers and their lives that are unwinding as they prepare to face a future of college applications and acceptance of where life will take then and of who they are.

This was such a great book about teenage friendships, love and having to be something you are not. This book centers around two friends - Sage and Charlie and their quest for true love and the obstacles they have to face to get there. Sage and Charlie were "destined to be together" except Sage isn't in love with Charlie and he is secretly Gay. This book was beautifully written with great character development - I loved seeing how full and vibrant each character was and how their stories are so intricately tied together. I enjoyed how the author wrote Charlie's struggles with coming out and the struggle between "who he is" and the man he loves. Definitely a 5/5 for me and I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys YA and who is going through teendom.

First loves and senior year- another boarding school romp that warmed my heart. The friendships and the romanceships are real and heartfelt, messy and amazing.

y'all are a mess and i love it!!!

but seriously, this book was pretty much perfect! I laughed, I cried, and I had an awesome time. I absolutely devoured this book, and I appreciated the care taken with the storyline and its characters. I was terrified there was going to be a non-consensual public outing as is all too common with this genre of YA, but was relieved to find there was not.

Whilst I did get confused sometimes with the changing perspectives and reiteration of scenes, and the initially large cast of characters, I adored this book. Read it!!!

This book should come with a warning.
You will be giddy, heartbroken and swooning. I was definitely invested in this one. I cannot believe it is a debut novel.

I feel like I might have a lot to say about this book, but yet there’s almost nothing to say. I really liked the characters in the story even though none of them were like really flushed out. I wish I had known more about Nick or known more even about Saige herself. I think having four main characters was almost a detriment to the story because we didn’t get to know everybody fully.
I think Charlie and Luke! had an OK relationship but I feel that there wasn’t enough of a romance between them I wanted to see more build up and then falling for each other. It ended up being more of a “I see a boy and I like him, watch me be become gay now”. It needed some more. I also don’t like that Charlie coming out doesn’t really become a huge plot point until the last 20% of the story. With some more edits I think this book could be 5x better.

Overall I would give it a 3.5/5

Overall, this book was a hit.
The four main characters were certainly entertaining, with their miscommunications driving the plot forward. This made the story a fun, crazy romp of drama and excitement.
I did struggle slightly with some of the LBGT+ inclusion, specifically, the coming out process in this book. A character is heavily forced to come out, which was a struggle to read about. Coming out should be entirely at the discretion of the individual coming out, so seeing them so influenced was hard to read.

I went into this book expecting a cute story about the bestest of friends and a faux love triangle and on that front, I was definitely not disappointed. I just love friendships so, so much. And I definitely enjoyed this book, even though there were some small things that irked me.

The characters

Sage? Amazing. Cool. Love her. She’s confident and such a nice, sweet character. If someone needs her, she’ll be there, especially when it’s Luke or Charlie needing her. Sage is extremely loyal to her loved ones. I also understood her struggles very well. She’s generally such a relatable character.

While I got annoyed with Charlie from time to time, I think he and the struggles and problems he had were really well written. He’s still figuring out his life and what he wants to do with it, he is trying to work out who he is and who he wants to be. I believe that many young people are going through the same stuff he is going through so I’m pretty sure he is relatable for many teenagers, especially closeted ones.

Nick is caring and sweet and more on the quiet side. I liked him. But I thought some of his actions were too rash and not thought through. I liked Luke though. He is such a cool character, a bit shy but incredibly smart and has a good sense of humor. I also liked the friendships between those characters but also with others. The friendships were the best about this book, with everyone trash talking, being supportive of each other, having fun but also having secrets. The portrayal of friendships was so good and so realistic. Especially Charlie and Sage had such a beautiful friendship. It’s such an unconditional love for each other, I could read about them saving each other’s asses all day. I LOVE THEM.
The romances were a whole other things. Some drama and heartbreak could have been avoided so easily if they just talked to each other. Drama due to miscommunication or a lack of communication is a thing I absolutely can’t stand. *Beware, next sentence contains a spoiler which I’m whiting out* I’m also tired of the I-can-only-be-with-you-if-you’re-out-trope.

The world building

This one, I loved! I wish I could just drive around the campus of Bexley on my own bike and just look at all the dorm rooms and the different school buildings and look at the stars at night and run from lesson to lesson and study in the library while watching other people. I could imagine everything so well.

The writing

I liked the writing in general. It was fitting for this novel. The problem was that there were no differences between Sage and Charlie’s voices. I had to go back sometimes and check whose chapter I was currently reading. I also think some scenes / chapters could have been longer. They sometimes end abruptly and I just thought „and where’s the rest?“ This especially happened when there was an event that was talked about for pages before but then was only mentioned in passing or for half a chapter.

Overall

This was a solid novel with wonderful characters that have so much love to give and give it to their wonderful friends. It was full of humor and great world building and I read it in one day, I just couldn’t stop myself.

4.5
Yay! This books was good and one of the stronger books I’ve received from Netgalley.

I felt like I was there in the setting, a classmate or a friend who was at part of this entire drama llama experience. It was lovely. It was engaging. It was very human and felt like a solid presentation of the woes and wonders of sorting out who we are/identity. You feel the tensions in all of the relationships (except the adult relationships those are pretty simplistic I thought?). Those tensions carry you through a shifting perspective adventure where you want to know how it ends.

From a character standpoint I found the first 2/3 better than the end section, but the book is a strong (debut I think!?) product regardless. I know students will fall for these characters and relate to them so much.

I will say I wished it wasn’t so so white besides one big character, but I guess that is realistic to the setting. (But I don’t know, I’m a PoC and I was definitely at a school like this.. can you include someone like me passing by to walk to class at least?? I think you can.. ).

Anyways, a great coming of age, relationships growing and changing, soothing through identities story. Really enjoyed it and it’s going to do well!

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. .

Buckle up, folks, because I have a rant and a half for you. This book may look a cute read, but oh boy did it also manage to piss me off.

The story follows two best friends: Sage and Charlie. Sage is straight and sort of maybe in love with Charlie’s brother, Nick. Charlie is gay, but busy dating pretty much every girl he can in an effort to hide it. I think you can probably guess my first complaint here.

I’m just tired of reading books where the gay character hates themselves. Particularly when it’s not handled at all well (like here). Particularly when it’s not (ostensibly) ownvoices. I’m not saying “you have to be out to write this storyline” or anything, because that’s as shitty as some of the things this book espouses. I just think you need to be a helluva lot more careful about it than here.

Two things here made it bad, specifically. Firstly, Charlie doesn’t exactly treat any of the girls very well. He dates them for a couple weeks, then unceremoniously ditches them. And he also doesn’t really treat Luke all that well at times (particularly when they start dating but aren’t out). It would be okay if the book took a clear stance on this, that he doesn’t treat them well and that he can’t excuse it with being closeted. It doesn’t take the opposite stance by any means, but it definitely could have made it clearer.

Then, the kicker. Just when you start to feel sorry for Luke, he pulls the “we can’t be together if you’re not out” card. I don’t know how to describe just how pissed off I got at that point. Yes, in the book we’re not expecting Charlie’s family to actually be homophobic (casual comments perhaps aside), but to say that, to have that as the message of the book? Feels irresponsible. Especially since then Charlie doesn’t really choose to come out to his parents, but more does it because Luke has broken up with him over it. I don’t know how to make it clear enough that you should let people come out on their own terms and in their own time. And anything that says otherwise is just bad.

One final thing (about the gay rep at least): you know when you get the whole sense of a book being all look at me I’m a gay ally and you just cringe? That’s very much the case here. There’s even a distinct scene I can point to that’s like, the most unsubtle thing. Joking that Charlie should be hiding in the closet instead of Sage’s bed from Sage’s parents, and thinking “no one should have to hide in the closet”. No, really. It’s a genuine part.

But, besides all that, there were actual other things that stopped me liking the story so much. Namely, I could not give less of a shit about Sage’s storyline. She spends half of it treating Nick like crap for some dumb reason, so that, when she’s upset they’re not together, I have such little patience for her I was tempted to skip her parts entirely. I mean, yes to complex and not always perfect female characters, but no to the ones who do exactly what the male ones do (and piss me off in the same way).

Finally (and I mean it this time), there are so many conversations in this book that just get referenced. We don’t see them happening, but they are clearly important conversations, because they get brought up later. But surely it’s better to give the reader those conversations, rather than the ones that merely reference them. Particularly when said conversations might actually provide some character/relationship development as well. And don’t even get me started on the timeskips.

So yeah. As you may be able to tell by the sheer length of this review, me and this book did not get along.

To say the least.

This was my first book by the author. I wasn't know how it all was gonna turn out but I liked the blurb and I was really interested to read the story.
So thank you NetGalley and SOURCEBOOKS fire for making that possible.

This book hadls all the ingredients of an entertaining teen drama. The main characters, Sage and Charlie are best friends and everyone thinks that are going to be so.ething more than that. But it's not that simple since Charlie starts showing interest in the new student Luke and Sage and Nick(Charlie's twin) starts getting close but Nick thinks that Sage is still has a crush on Charlie. As you can see here, this story has a fair share of drama and angst. Some of the part, such as Sage keeping Nick and her relationship a secret, was a bit over the top. As I said this book has it's share of teenage drama. But it also focuses on some important aspects of teen life such as getting good grades, holding up peer expectations and also trying to figure themselves out as an individual. An best example of the last part was Charlie figuring out his sexuality and trying to come out of the closet. The best part is definitely the friendship Charlie and Sage shared. They both had their fair share of mistakes and to be honest these characters were relatable. I enjoyed this book and if you are looking for a good high school romance with lots of drama and angst then you should definitely check this one out. It comes out on Jun 1 this year and I hope you like it as much as I did.

Happy reading!

I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

When I saw this book, I thought it sounded like it would be a great read! I am happy to admit, I did like the book. I didn’t fall in love with it, okay, I loved the first few chapters. And I like overcoming problems as much as the next person, but I would have loved for the whole book to be light hearted and happy, and that was definitely not the case. The book takes a much darker, grimmer tone the second half of the book. I will admit I wasn’t expecting that.
As with the book description, the book was focused on relationship issues. That in itself was accurate. I will admit that some of the “issues” I felt were contrived for drama purposes and it didn’t feel all that natural. I wish it had, because I think the relationships were some of the best parts of the book, especially the friendships. Sometimes I feel that we rarely get to see fun and natural friendships between characters, and I felt that this book did such a great job of that. It is a large friend group, but I think that as they all gathered together and hung out, it felt really natural and written in a way that worked. It was one of the high points of the book.
As far as the writing goes, I think the writing was good. There were times when it was absolutely amazing, and then there were others where it felt a lot more stilted. Of it all, the dialogue between Sage and Charlie is some of the best in the book.
Character wise, I have a hate love relationship with both Sage and Charlie. Because at the beginning and the end I really liked their personalities, but in the middle of the book I loathed them. It was aggravating for me, but in the end some of it did feel like how I remember being a teen would. Mind you, I never dated, but from what I remember of my friends who did, Sage definitely felt true to that. (Even as frustrating as it was.)
In the end, I think that it was a good book, but not one that blew me away.