This was definitely a very heavy book, but it was so beautiful written. I couldn’t help but be drawn to the characters and their journeys. I would definitely read more from this author in the future.

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. This book was fine. It was a bit forgettable. I wanted to love it a lot more than I ended up doing. But I think there is an audiance that will enjoy this one.

I loved PICTURE US IN THE LIGHT and the way that Gilbert creates her stories and characters, so I was prepared to enjoy WHEN WE WERE INFINITE as well. I do feel like this book may need to come with a trigger warning because it touches upon a lot of difficult topics: domestic abuse and mental health being the top two.

That said, I thought this book was beautifully done. The characters completely grabbed my attention and my heartstrings. I wasn't sure how Gilbert was going to conclude this book, especially since the majority of the story is happening in the middle of a transition period for this group of friends. But she does a wonderful job wrapping up storylines and giving us an idea of what happens to these friends after high school.

Beth was an excellent character but I would've liked more time with her friends. This might have been a book where multiple POVs would've strengthened it because it would give us more time with all of them. However, she was a great protagonist and really enjoyed her story.

Thank you Simon & Schuster Canada and NetGalley for this advanced copy! So happy I had the chance to fall in love with this story.

I was granted complimentary access to When We Were Infinite via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. My thoughts are my own and my review is honest.

To be honest, I don't know what it was about this book that made me click request, and when the approval came in I didn't remember requesting it. So when I was approved far too close to release day to squeeze it into my busy blog tour schedule, I let release day pass me by and slipped this book into the "read it in pieces between stuff" rotation on my e-reader. It proved to be a difficult read because it's so emotionally heavy, so it took a long time to get through it, and I'm not sure if I'm remembering everything I wanted to say at this point, but here goes.

Beth comes from a rocky family setting, and when she finds herself facing the possibility of losing her friend group too she scrambles to keep her world together. This book is full of the sort of honest grief and struggle that far too many teens go through when their entire world shifts all at once and shakes the foundation of their love maps. The struggle and messy conclusion are so powerful and so important.

As someone of European ancestry, I can't truly comment on the accuracy of Asian-American representation, but I will say I did see some of my childhood friends in this book. I grew up in an area saturated with families who fled Hong Kong in the early 1990s and a school district that was popular with Korean exchange programs. Between the way my Asian-Canadian classmates presented and conducted themselves in class and the more private things the ones I befriended shared with me, I can say I recognize their stories here.

I really struggled with how to rate this book, undecided between 3 and 4 stars, because I think it's an important book for others to read. I don't want to discourage potential readers from picking it up and experiencing all the things this book has to say. That said, I didn't jive with Beth's narrative voice at all. She takes out her grief and angst on the people around her, and I really didn't find her very likeable. She's realistically flawed, but it feels like someone forgot to highlight her redeeming features for us. When she's impulsively nasty to someone there just isn't enough established good about her to give her the benefit of the doubt and empathize with her.

I think a lot of teens will resonate with this book, regardless of whether or not they feel the same way about Beth, so I do recommend this to older/mature YA readers of contemporary fiction.

I received an e-galley of When We Were Infinite from Simon and Schuster via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Synopsis:

From award-winning author Kelly Loy Gilbert comes a powerful, achingly romantic drama about the secrets we keep, from each other and from ourselves, perfect for fans of Permanent Record and I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter.

All Beth wants is for her tight-knit circle of friends--Grace Nakamura, Brandon Lin, Sunny Chen, and Jason Tsou--to stay together. With her family splintered and her future a question mark, these friends are all she has--even if she sometimes wonders if she truly fits in with them. Besides, she's certain she'll never be able to tell Jason how she really feels about him, so friendship will have to be enough.

Then Beth witnesses a private act of violence in Jason's home, and the whole group is shaken. Beth and her friends make a pact to do whatever it takes to protect Jason, no matter the sacrifice. But when even their fierce loyalty isn't enough to stop Jason from making a life-altering choice, Beth must decide how far she's willing to go for him--and how much of herself she's willing to give up.

Review:
This is not an easy read. At all. To begin, there are a lot of topics that the novel touches upon that are not the easiest to discuss - domestic abuse, violence, suicide, anxiety, panic attacks, and abandonment. And then reading the story from Beth’s point of view - I don’t think that I have ever felt more anxiety reading a novel. She has so much self-doubt in her and I could not help but take all her emotional anxiety as my own as I was reading through the story. Even as I write this - as I’m thinking back on my reading experience - I feel anxious and a sense of unease. Which is all to say that that may be the mastery of the writing. To make you feel so attuned to a character’s anxiety that you can not help but become one with it. So while I do commend the writing, I have reservations for how much I truly enjoyed the story. Like I mentioned at the start, this is not an easy read and it is important to know that going into the story.

This was a very difficult read. I would highly suggest that you make sure that you are in the right state of mind before you go into it. I had to take a few breaks to acclimate myself to the storyline and to make sure I wasn't too overwhelmed. For that reason, I loved the resources section at the end of the book. It is very appropriate considering all the topics that are discussed throughout the story.

With all that being said, my favorite thing about this book was that the ending is extremely satisfying. It leaves room for the future and for the characters to keep growing whilst still wrapping up every important storyline.

I also really enjoyed the group dynamic we got to explore through Beth and her friends. Every character was unique, and you became attached to them for different reasons. I would actually be interested to read a book following any of them. The best part, however, was when they came together, and you could see their friendship evolve and grow over the course of the story.

I would like to thank NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review, all thoughts and opinions are my own.

This is a really powerful book but I think my problem was I couldn’t really relate.
I found Beth really annoying and I wanted her to help herself or show some strength.
She did not think of others very much but expected them to think about her. Her friends too, didn’t really help which made me dislike it more.
I understand that this centers around mental health, and I feel that all these topics are super important. But, it was so extreme and I could not get into the mind set.
This book and the approach it took to battle these stigmatisms was just not for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for a copy of this book. All thoughts are my own.

*2.5 stars*

This coming of age story centres around 5 Asian American friends who are trying to find their way through the world during their senior year. The main character Beth is very naive & hates change, which was honestly a little irritating. She makes very poor decisions, which is kinda concerning at times, but I guess that’s what teens do? Something that infuriated me about Beth is the fact that she has no boundaries & is extremely self centred - she was worried about how Jason’s actions affected her & not about how he was feeling. Actually, at times the whole friend group didn’t understand the weight of the situation, which made me not really care for any of the characters. While I think that this book touched on super important topics such as racism and suicide, I think it could’ve been approached in a better and less harmful way. Nonetheless, the writing itself was superb, just not a big fan of where the plot went & how irritating the characters were at times.

TW: domestic assault/abuse, attempted suicide, racism, microaggressions, mental health and illness, panic attacks


If there’s something you should take away from my review, it’s this: When We Were Infinite is a really, really hard read. It is all the more important for it.

That being said, I’m going to be honest. For the majority of this book, I felt drained. It tackles a lot of heavy subjects, from mental illness to domestic violence, intergenerational conflict to internalized racism, and the terrifying, frustrating helplessness experienced by children of immigrants when we face these challenges. Personally, I had to be very intentional in my reading, taking intermittent breaks, allowing myself to feel angry/sad/hurt.

My favourite part of this book—besides the heap-loads of Asian rep—was Kelly Loy Gilbert’s writing, which flows seamlessly and compels you to read on. At several points, her words moved me to tears.

Loy Gilbert demonstrates that beautiful, descriptive prose need not be monopolized by fiction targeted at adults. When We Were Infinite is all the more vivid because it doesn’t rely on the saccharine clichés that some YA authors believe high schoolers to speak in.

Because of this, the friendships between Beth and Sunny, Jason, Brandon, and Grace felt tangible and real; they hurt my heart. And it was the themes of friendship—and loyalty and love—that really spoke to me. What does all of this mean, when you’re on the cusp of your lives changing enormously? For Beth, who has found a group of people she loves with her whole heart, the uncertainty of a future after high school is terrifying.

◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️

However, I wasn’t the biggest fan of Beth’s narration. It was, If I’m being frank, difficult for me to be in her head. I think in many ways she reminds me (too much) of myself; in her, I not only see but also feel, very viscerally, the pressure to be accommodating and diminutive and uncontroversial that I experience daily as a woman of colour.

It was also depleting for me to read about her idol-worship for her (white) father and demeaning attitude toward her (Chinese) mother. This, coupled with the mental health issues experienced by several characters in the book, led me to have to set this novel aside for several days to take a breather.

That being said, I felt that Loy Gilbert deftly captures certain nuances and complexities of contemporary Asian American experiences, particularly those for mixed-race folks. There is kindred poignancy in her words. This was also one of the most heart-wrenching depictions of music and being a musician that I’ve ever read; I am very appreciative of that.

I also thought that the ending especially resonated because the book doesn’t eschew nuance for a happily-ever-after. It wrapped up this story on a hopeful, bright note—though not without its uncertainty—and left me with tears in my eyes.

◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️

Bottom line: MORE. #OWNVOICES. BOOKS. ABOUT. ASIAN. CHARACTERS! It was a magical experience reading—a facet of—the Asian diasporic experience through the lens of Loy Gilbert’s prose. This wasn’t the book for me, but it absolutely will be for someone else, made clear by rave reviews already.




Many thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster Canada for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I am a super fan of Kelly's book "Picture Us in the Light" which means I was incredibly excited for this book; however, she broke my heart because I did not enjoy it at all. Beth was insufferable to say the least; she made terrible decisions, hid things, she treated her mom terribly and her whole persona was her friends. Due to this, there was obviously going to be character development from her, but it happened at the last two chapters of the book; it took too long.
I did like the ending; nonetheless, in my opinion, Beth and Jason had zero chemistry and did not make a good couple. In conclusion, it was a dramatic novel with lovable characters (Sunny has my heart) and despite my thoughts on it, Kelly is a terrific writer and I cannot wait for more from her.

I found it hard to get into this book. I found the story line to be just surface. I wish it would have went deeper with the characters.

"When We Were Infinite" by Kelly Loy Gilbert, Simon & Schuster
Category: YA novel
*I received this eARC from Simon & Schuster via NetGalley in return for an honest review.
My rating: 2 stars
TW (trigger warnings): suicide attempt, physical abuse, depression

Description from the publisher:
All Beth wants is for her tight-knit circle of friends—Grace Nakamura, Brandon Lin, Sunny Chen, and Jason Tsou—to stay together. With her family splintered and her future a question mark, these friends are all she has—even if she sometimes wonders if she truly fits in with them. Besides, she’s certain she’ll never be able to tell Jason how she really feels about him, so friendship will have to be enough.
Then Beth witnesses a private act of violence in Jason’s home, and the whole group is shaken. Beth and her friends make a pact to do whatever it takes to protect Jason, no matter the sacrifice. But when even their fierce loyalty isn’t enough to stop Jason from making a life-altering choice, Beth must decide how far she’s willing to go for him—and how much of herself she’s willing to give up.

I DNFd this book. I know it has great reviews but I just couldn't get past half way. The main character, Beth, just kept getting worse and worse. She is a whiny, obsessive, naive 17 year old who can't handle the idea of growing up and having her own life apart from her friends. I understand wanting to be in the same state as her friends and missing being with them but she takes this to an obsessive degree. She has an unrealistic view of her parents where she blames her mom for everything when it sounds like her father is a self-absorbed, negligent parent who has no time or interest to spend on her. She goes through a major trauma and understandably wants her friends around her but she goes into full on panic attacks when things don't go exactly as she plans them. I get that she's developing a severe anxiety disorder but I just started really disliking the character. Aside from my multiple problems with the main character, I didn't think the author did much with the other characters. They all sort of felt the same, just with different names attached. I have no idea if the second half of this book got a lot better or not but I couldn't force myself to find out. Obviously other people really like this book but it was a no for me.

3.5 stars

As a fan of KLG's novel, Picture Us in the Light, I had high hopes for When We Were Infinite.

The story centers around a tight knit Asian American group of friends in their senior year, and how they are impacted after they witness one of their friends being abused. It was very vividly emotional book that explored such serious topics so well. The diversely accurate depictions of Asian characters and culture and the familial relations of immigrant parents and child abuse connected so deeply with me.

I wish that the novel went deeper into Beth and her issues with her absent father and her mixed race identity. Beth’s desperate to save Jason was an issue that was scarcely talked about and the ending in regards to this was slightly problematic.

It wasn't a Picture Us in the Light but it is stunning and powerful book.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the Arc.

Thanks to the publisher of providing an eARC of When We Were Infinite.

I had a lot of trouble getting through this book and I'm not quite sure why. There's nothing necessarily wrong about Kelly Loy Gilbert's writing, but this book really dragged for me. I feel like we were set up to get a cast of distinctive, developed characters then Beth's friend group quickly merged into a pretty interchangeable cast and Beth herself doesn't have much of a personality beyond her personal tragedies. It made her decisions seem bizarre and forced and kept me from every really connecting to anything here.