"If This Gets Out" is one of those fiction books that makes you question if it is based on a true story. The book has a lot of great aspects. The romance between Rueben and Zach was a positive depiction of romance filled with sweet romance. Also, the relationship of all the band members was refreshing because most YA books don't show positive, functional friendships. Plus, the book's message of being true to yourself was well presented. Yet, I had a problem with the pacing. I felt like I spent the first 100 pages waiting for something to happen. This book was an interesting twist on a romance between famous people, but the book felt too long.

Fun, romantic, and heartfelt! So full of heart, and joy, and angst, featuring lovable, authentic, believable characters who support each other in the way you hope all friends will! A great read!

Reads like fanfic in the best way possible. Fun and enjoyable read. It gets heavy just enough to keep things interesting. I enjoyed the way that “If This Gets Out” looks into how people in bands are monitored and can be controlled. It provided a good reminder that social media/public perception is curated and not always close to the truth. The authors absolutely nailed Ruben and his mom's relationship. Not all janky parents need a redemption arc. It's okay to have deeply flawed parents and show Ruben starting to establish boundaries for his own wellbeing.
Zach's indecisiveness/inability to communicate because he wants everyone happy hit a little too close. Overall I enjoyed this book and would recommend the read.

Thank you to NetGalley, McMillan Audio, and Wednesday Books for providing me with an ARC.

I loved this book. This gay boy-band romance was absolutely adorable. I think now I might be a Saturday fan girl.

Zach and Ruban were great together. I loved reading from both of their point of view. I also loved getting to see how their feelings changed as the story progressed. Zach especially had great character development.

The friendships in this book could have stolen the show. The four boys had such a deep bond but it was tested with several ups and downs.

I was expecting this book to be light-hearted and fun, but I was surprised by the number of heavy subjects it touched on. If This Gets Out dealt with drug abuse, emotional abuse, and mental health/the pressure of being famous.

Am I interested in reading about boy bands? No.
Would I read anything by Sophie Gonzalez|] after loving both [book:Only Mostly Devastated|45046743] and [book:Perfect on Paper|49204960]? Yes.

Unfortunately, there was something about this book that did not work for me. I kept reading it hoping that it would get better, but it didn't. It was just as predictable as expected.

As someone who grew up on One Direction I was OBVIOUSLY going to be into this book. Love boybands. I liked this! I think at times it was just okay but I sped through it and especially towards the end was really into it. Ruben and Zach are so sweet and I thought their dynamic was so cute. Absolutely loved that it ended up with a happy ending! :)

If This Gets Out, co-written by Sophie Gonzales/Cale Dietrich and wonderfully narrated by Ramon de Ocampo, is a sweet, moving, and enchanting YA romance about falling in love and following your heart. I couldn’t resist the opportunity to listen to a book about a boyband with friends-to-lovers and a forbidden relationship. But there’s so much more to this novel. The authors explore the difficulty of being queer when people make you fear openly expressing and being yourself and ask you to hide fundamental aspects of who you are—who you love and with whom you choose to share intimate parts of your life and yourself—with emotional authenticity, nuance, introspection, and insight. The audiobook captured hold of my complete attention and heart. I listened to the audiobook whenever I had the chance and had to make myself turn it off one morning at 5 a.m. because I got so engrossed.

De Ocampo narrates the novel from alternating, dual, first-person POVs of Ruben Montez and Zach Knight, eighteen-year-old members of the popular boyband Saturday, capturing the band’s experiences on their world tour. More than just a boyband or American’s latest teen heartthrobs, Saturday’s four members—Ruben, Zach, Angel Phan, and Jon Braxton—are best friends backstage and off-camera. Ruben and Zach, however, have always been closer friends, looking out for each other, listening, or simply being there. So, it’s no surprise that Ruben confides in Zach how isolated and frustrated he feels because the band’s management pressures him to stay in the closet. Moreover, the strain of the tour, little or no free time, restrictive schedules, fame’s/stardom’s pressures, and management's complete control of their identities/lives wears on the teens, and they all deal differently. Zach and Ruben spend more time alone, relying on each other for sanity and balance, their relationship shifting unexpectedly from friendship to romance. Management’s stifling control and restrictions affect their ability to adjust to, explore, and be in a romantic relationship on their terms.

Gonzales’/Dietrich’s vibrant description and detailed worldbuilding bring these characters and their stories so brilliantly to life you feel every moment of their tour and its aftermath so deeply and personally. Listening to the audiobook is an even more immersive experience with de Ocampo’s lively narration, filled with personality, intimacy, and emotion—especially during intense, dramatic scenes. The authors excellently explore the conflict between the teens’ true personalities and identities and their Saturday identities. De Ocampo’s narration beautifully gives voice to these well-drawn characters, capturing their distinctive personalities with pacing, attitude, tone, nuance, and accents. The band members’ interactions and performances/preparations details are among the best things about the novel. Of course, the relationship between Zach and Ruben is my favorite. It’s beautifully developed from the beginning—the foundation of their close friendship laid and sprinkled with seeds of their potentially requited romantic feelings. De Ocampo’s narration shines in their interactions, which are sweet, adorable, humorous, intimate, and affecting. Ruben’s and Zach’s pining and inability to simply talk to each other after their relationship starts changing are painful in the best way. Gonzales/Dietrich develop these characters so wonderfully. Zach’s evolution and maturation are so beautifully written. Initially, I wasn’t sure how I felt about de Ocampo’s voice. However, he won me over with his narration for Zach and his ability to perfectly express the emotional intensity of the confusing, awkward, painful, disappointing, angry, and joyful moments the teens experienced.

Following the tour allows readers to experience the highs and lows, demands, responsibilities, and sacrifices of being successful teen performers at the height of their careers and its effects on each band member—especially having your image/identity created and dictated to you, and your every moment planned and controlled by someone else. The authors explore many issues teens deal with in a hugely familiar setting—the fishbowl of celebrity, a boyband in particular—but the story and pacing never feel weighed down. Issues explored include drug use, teen alcohol, teen sexuality, depression, confusion about sexual orientation, coming out, and toxic relationships with parents/other adults. Narrative flow and pacing are balanced as each teen and the band face and deal with these issues organically within the novel’s progression.

If This Gets Out explores themes of friendship, sexual orientation, coming out, finding your soulmate, discovering who you are, who you want to be, what you want for your life, and how to fight for yourself and a life with the one you love in a down to earth way without being preachy. It’s a relevant, thought-provoking, intense, funny, sweet, emotional, and romantic love story I cannot recommend highly enough to fans of queer YA romances, boybands, pining, and friends-to-lovers romances.

Loved this story. As a former boy-band addict of the 90s, I completely devoured this one. Definitely a great look at the darker side of fame. A little too teen-angsty at times but overall a great story.

Thank you to the publisher for the audiobook access on NetGalley! I thoroughly enjoyed this listen and couldn’t get enough of it. Ruben and Zach were such strong characters, and I love how the conflict was dealt with. Overall, this is the perfect book to give you the warm fuzzies.

#IfThisGetsOut:

Here we go, one more time, Mellie’s got a book, a dime.

I’ve been listening to “Here We Go” a bit too much, but it’s perfect. Did y’all know we can get a YA boy band story? Because, it’s here.

I think this came out at such a perfect time with major discussions of Britney’s conservatorship. These boy band members were so controlled to where they couldn’t even leave their hotel room or live their truth that it really just hurt me. It’s all “Nicole, your brand is watching” but really, your brand doesn’t care and this isn’t the authentic you and the fans would accept you no matter what.

The audio was wonderful! I did get a bit confused on which part of Zuben was speaking since both read by the wonderful Ramon de Ocampo, but once I got their personalities down, I got it.

I really enjoyed If This Gets Out! There’s A LOT packed into the book, but it all flowed well enough so where I didn’t feel it was too much and it amplified their treatment and understanding of their everyday life stardom.

Thank you so much @macmillan @wednesday books for the gifted copy. I really enjoyed If This Gets Out!

What’s a song that no matter what, you’re about to be on another level when it comes on? Any Man of Mine - Shania!

Amazing. Stellar. Perfect. Fantastic. 10/10. Only good things. This story is cute and funny and a whirlwind of emotions and anyone who has ever had a favorite boy band will enjoy it SO MUCH. Dual POVs! Friends to lovers! Idiots in love! EVERY GREAT TROPE IS HERE Y'ALL. Trust me, you want this book in your life. You just do.

What a beautiful romance set amid so much homophobia and pressures of being famous. This book can be tropey in a comforting way -- it certainly fits into the best friends to lovers framework. I also appreciated that although miscommunication did occur, it didn't result in huge stints of the silent treatment or ghosting which is one of my pet peeves. Instead, they did have those difficult conversations and come to a conclusion. Anyway, I enjoyed it immensely and hope you will too!

Sophie Gonzales could write the phone book and I'd still read it. (Yes, that thing that isn't even delivered anymore.)
Still, fan-girling aside, If This Gets Out is the One Direction fic you thought you wanted but didn't realize you needed. The characters are closeted, with one of them figuring out his sexual orientation along the way and the other being consciously stifled by the record label/his manager the entire time. There are some pieces that are difficult to read, such as a secondary character's drug use and self-harm, but there's a lot of softness and the character work Gonzales is capable of is in evidence here.
The plotting isn't as tight as I'm used to and there were times I wanted more clarity on one of the bandmates' motivation, so I did wonder where Dietrich's influence came in. (His other books haven't worked for me.)
The best-friends-and-bandmates-to-lovers plot was as complicated and as simple as I could have wished for. There's some confused pining, but mostly the two of them are so close already--best friends who are in close proximity 100% of the time as they're on tour--that it's sort of inevitable.
Recommended if you like or can at least tolerate boy band plots and are looking for a new-adult kind of gay romance with quite a bit of angst.

Audio Notes: Ramon de Ocampo's voice is a bit nasally for my preference, but I thought he did a good job narrating for dual POV. Each of the two young men had a distinct voice and it was easy to tell which POV we were in. I recommend listening to the sample to see if you'll like it.

This is a highly addictive read. I listened to it in just 2 days and I loved it but kinda hated it at the same time.

I love the relationships between the characters and especially adored the close friendship between the band members. All of the characters felt like humans, which is not that common in ya contemporary romances... Not only that the relationships with their parents were incredibly real.

I was really surprised by the topics this book handles but I didn't think that it handled with the seriousness that they deserved.

What a great audiobook edition to an even greater book about gay rockstars afraid to share their love and themselves to the world. 10/10.

I was weary going into this book because of how many people compared it to One Direction, and I couldn’t imagine that being great. I am very happy that I did give this a chance. There were two levels to this book. On one hand, it was a fairly cute friends/band members to lovers romance. On the other hand, it dealt with a lot of serious and heavier topics, which, in my opinion, were handled really well.

This book shows the darker side of dealing with the music and entertainment industry. Such as the abuse, neglect, oppression, etc that many people people, especially teens in the industry have to deal with. It handles addiction and drug abuse, racism, being forced to stay in the closet, and so much more. As well as how the industry not only adds to it but actively enables it.

There were so many layers to this story that I would never have expected that somehow didn’t get muddled or lost in the story, it still managed to keep a good pace. I would recommend this book over and over. Thank you, NetGalley, for this opportunity to read and review it.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher I was able to listen to this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.
***
If This Gets Out by Sophie Gonzales and Cale Dietrich follows hit boy band Saturday and two members specifically, Zach and Reuben. When the band goes on a Europe tour a lot of things about life in a band start to become incredibly apparent and secrets start to bleed through the cracks. Life is rough when who you are is strictly managed, especially when your image doesn’t necessarily mesh with who you are as a person. Four friends, good friends, but put pressure on them and things will explode.
Reuben is out and proud to his band members and to management… who won’t let him come out in general. Beginning to chafe and struggle at hiding such a huge part of himself Reuben falls back on his friendship with Zach to find a light in everything. Reuben is sick of hiding himself and wants to finally step in the spotlight as the person he is.
Zach meanwhile is having struggles of his own, the music of the band isn’t really his style and he’s been trying hard to write music that can be approved and used for the band, something that is his. Zach leans back on Reuben just as much and they realize that they have more than friendship but management isn’t very supportive.
***
This was at times sweet and cute, but there were parts that just seemed so slow.
I adored Zach and Reuben, they had tough but important conversations and while they didn’t always handle it well they stuck the conversations out. I also loved the other two members of the band Angel and Jon. The camaraderie felt real between them all. They never really disappear from the book, they are an important part of who Reuben and Zach are and the things they do so they are pretty present throughout the book.
The book was an interesting look at the entertainment business and how it can be both a force for good and a force of stifling creativity that just wants to slap a name on something and make money. All four suffer in different ways because of the latter.
The contrast between Reuben and Zach’s family also added an interesting layer to who the boys were and how it has shaped them. Reuben has a controlling gaslighting mother that he at turns loves and wants desperately to get away from while his dad offers no support from the sidelines. Zach meanwhile has an awesome mom that despite how hard it is to talk about certain things with someone you love, especially someone you don’t expect problems from but are scared regardless to have particular conversations with, is always super supportive and does her best to make sure Zach doesn’t forget how important to her he is.
Overall, a really great book, and an amazing narrator.
***
CW: drug use, addiction, gas lighting, non-graphic accident that results in injuries, homophobia

This book was a really fun, cute contemporary love story. The writing style, the characters, and some of the plot points made it feel like I was reading a really good fanfic of a fandom I'm not a part of. At first I wasn't super into the romance aspect of it, but they won me over in the end. It was great to see the main couple work through their issues, communicate, and be there for growth and to help better each other. I also appreciated how the physical aspects of the relationship were treated. I'm not someone who likes a lot of spice in my romance books, but I thought the authors did a really good job of toeing the line to show they did have physical chemistry without going into too much detail about it.

I listened to this book on audio, and while the narrator was fine for the most part, there were a few times when Ruben and Zach were talking and I got confused about which of them were speaking. It wasn't a super huge deal, but there were points where it felt like there wasn't enough of a difference in their voices.

Thank you, NetGalley for a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I’ll preface this review by saying I’m solidly in the N’SYNC and Backstreet Boys glory days time period (I guess that would be considered historical fiction hehe!) so any possible One Direction references most likely went over my head. That said, this was an enjoyable YA story for me!

It’s told through two perspectives of one half the boy band Saturday--Ruben and Zach. The duo, along with members Angel and Jon--are teen heartthrobs in America and all extremely close off stage--but the fame and success are starting to create friction that won’t take much to combust.

Zach has been forced to stay in the closet and Ruben starts developing “more than friend” feelings for Zach on tour. Angel’s facing his own inner demons, and Jon is struggling to keep the peace between his manager dad and his bandmates. It's a fabulous coming of age story for the whole group of guys. I love that it focused just as much on the storyline of their careers and friendships as it did the romance. As a mom, I also really appreciated the interactions with the parents and how their families dealt with their young careers, their sexuality, and giving them enough agency to make future decisions for themselves.

The audiobook is narrated by Ramon de Ocampo, and even though the story is told through multiple perspectives, the single narrator works well here. I listened to an ALC via MacMillan Audio in the NetGalley Shelf app.

I enjoyed  reading and listen to this m/m romance story. It was fun getting to know all of the characters throughout the story. The two main characters were Ruben and Zach.

Ruben and Zach are part of a Ya boys band. The band is going to Europe for around trip tour. While on the tour the two boys try to figure out their relationship. A lot of things happened during this tour in Europe that change all the band members.

This was a fun heartwarming and meaningful story. It also had a few laughs along the way. I enjoyed all the characters and see how things would turn out.

I received a complimentary copy via Netgalley. This is my honest unbiased opinions.