Thank you NetGalley and Page Street kids for providing me with this ALC in exchange for an honest review!

I'm so glad I found this gem of a book on NetGalley, because it's such a fun one! Luca is so lovable, and I feel like I knew Luca in high school, he was so real! Of course miscommunication and secret relationship in combination can be a pretty frustrating plot line, but I thought Jordan was actually a fresh version of this that I appreciated. I was a little uncomfortable with the plotline with Luca's dad, their conflict was pretty hard to read for me, and I thought he was far too harsh on Luca. But, overall, I had a wonderful time reading and would highly recommend for all YA and romance lovers!

4.25 stars ->swipe for a summary
i absolutely adored this book! i listened to the audiobook and the narrator was amazing- he really conveyed luca's (the main character's) personality and made it fun to listen.

here's what else i liked:
-the realness of every single character but especially:

luca; while i thought that he was a bit annoying sometimes, that just made him realistic and i really did relate to him/his problems a lot- luca is loveable and real and he always kept learning, which i love.
amina (luca's best friend); as far as i can judge, amina is great muslim representation and just beyond wonderful as a character; she's sweet, funny, empathetic and has a mind of her own!
jordan (luca's love interest); i believe that he mistreated luca a lot of the time while he was in the closet and that is not okay at all. still, i loved how we could really understand why he acted the way that he did, how much being in the closet hurt him and also that he did everything to be a great boyfriend to luca (in the end). his struggles were brought across emotionally and accurately.
luca's dad; who tried to be the best dad he could be, all while dealing with loss and hurt himself
-the elements of ballet and how an injury can change everything; luca's grief, anger and pain were represented in such a heartfelt and authentic way
-how luca finally found himself and figured out who he really is
-the romance :) it was so cute and i just had to root for the both of them

here's what bothered me a bit:
-throughout most of the book, luca and jordan expected so many different things from their relationship that they couldn't give each other- jordan wasn't out and luca needed him to be and for him to be proud and loud about it BUT these things get resolved in the end, which is great
-the characters could have used a tiny bit more depth, especially luca- i feel like he had the personality and sometimes we did learn a lot about him; sometimes, though, i didn't really feel a connection to his character

all in all; very little to complain about and i would absolutely recommend this to all of you :)

ANYTHING BUT FINE
BY Tobias madden
First of all never apologize for who you are. Australian slang is amazing, I love the quirky nature, it brings another element to the story. The frightful injury that is the end of a dream is a common story but Tobias shows that life is complicated and we don't always get what we expect with the important things. We can plan, dream, hope, and work hard but no plans go smoothly, and everyone has to change their story. The aspect of gay and bi culture in Australia is little known. Most people do not see how such a masculine driven society accepts change how its baby steps, and the truth that will provide acceptance not slamming or shaming people that will change minds. Giving people space to learn and grow brings out the best lesson in life's journey. I hope that this book can be shared, not only to the LGBQ + society but for the great Aussie terms, point of view and remarkable character. Things might not go as you plan, but be honest, listen, and adapt will help everyone.

This grew once so much and I ended up staying up until the early hours as I couldn’t stop listening! One of my favourite things was that both author and narrator are queer - own voices are so important. It’s such a good novel for all those at the beginning of their queer awakening. It has a great mix of serious moments and sassy funny moments. I also love the message that even when it feels like everything is falling apart it still ends up okay. Definitely going to be looking for more from the author and narrator alike.

Audiobook Review:
Overall – 5
Performance – 5
Story – 5

Fantastic story and audio performance.

Anything But Fine is a great YA story that can be enjoyed by all ages. I listened to the audiobook and absolutely loved it. I started listening kind of late in the evening (big mistake LOL) and I ended up staying up until 7 a.m. to finish because I just couldn’t put it down. Thank goodness I am retired. 😊

The advanced copy of the audiobook that I listened to had a great interview/discussion between the author and narrator that I found wonderfully interesting. I can’t find any other audiobooks performed by Matthew Backer but during the talk he indicated that he is an actor so it’s easy to understand how he was able to do such a great job with his performance of the story.

Anything But Fine is full of great and not so great characters – pretty typical of high school. After he changes schools, Luca is befriended by fellow student, Amina, who happens to be Muslim. They bond very quickly at least in part because other students don’t like them – Luca because he’s gay and Amina because she is Muslim.

I could go on and on and tell more of the story but the blurb gives you the basics. I can’t recommend this audiobook highly enough; it’s fantastic!

A complimentary copy of this audiobook was provided to me at my request from the publisher via NetGalley but my review was voluntary and not influenced by the author and/or narrator.

ANYTHING BUT FINE tells the story of Luca, a teenaged ballet dancer who suffers a career-ending injury, which forces him into unfamiliar territory, as he deals with starting at a new school, envisioning a new future for himself, and developing a huge crush on a straight boy. Several threads wind together in this book as Luca balances all his various relationships with his crush, his father, his old friends vs. his new friend, his recovery, and his future prospects. While every plot line gets appropriately messy, the author does a neat job of balancing them to create a nicely paced and well-rounded story. He strikes a lovely balance of humor, romance, and heartfelt moments too.

It's not a perfect book. Some characters go the way of cliche, and the plot is a tad predictable. I also feel like sometimes Luca gets blamed for things clearly out of his control, while other times he gets off easy for making harmful mistakes. That being said, this is a solid read for anyone who enjoys contemporary young adult books, especially queer ones, and reading a story set outside of the US is always a treat.

This was a really wonderful story that pulled at my heartstrings. When an incident has Luca's dreams slipping through his fingers he has to figure out who exactly he is without ballet. It's not an easy task since ballet is pretty much all he has ever know throughout his life. Along the way of him trying to find himself he becomes close with a classmate that everyone assumes is straight, yet Luca thinks that may not be the truth. When their bond continues to grow closer and closer, Luca has to decide if he is ready to truly give his heart up in the possibility that his heart could be broken yet again. Thank you NetGalley for an arc of this story.

This was a very nice and great read and audiobook, I would 100% recommend this book to anyone who is wondering what this book is about. Thank you, NetGalley for a free audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

4.25 Stars

Thank you to Netgalley and Recorded Books for an ALC of this book.

When Luca has an accident that ruins his future career as a ballerina, he is forced to change schools and feels like he's starting his life over. Along comes Jordan, the pretty (probably straight) face that Luca is able to pin his hopes on.

I really liked this book. Luca and Jordan's relationship very much gave me Nick and Charlie from Heartstopper vibes. Luca's journey is very interesting. He is not a super likable character, but he does experience a lot of character growth and develops into more of his own person throughout the book. The discussion of what it means to lose your perceived future is really good, and I also liked the discussions around coming out.

I really liked the narration in this and definitely recommend the audio! Luca's new friend Amina is truly the MVP of this book!

Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism, Islamophobia, Racial slurs, and Homophobia
Moderate: Bullying, Death of parent, and Grief
Minor: Sexual content, Medical content, and Hate crime

I received a copy of the Audiobook Anything But Fine by Tobias Madden
from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. I enjoyed listening to this book for the most part. However, at times I found Luca to get a little annoying, mostly due to how repetitive he seemed to get throughout the book. Furthermore, I found the solutions to some of the relationship problems that came up through the book to be a tad wrong or resulting in glazing over the problem or miscommunication that occurred. I would have enjoyed the book a bit more if they communicated a bit more about their problems.
On the other hand, I did like how varying Matthew Backer’s narration was, as he truly embodied the characters throughout the story. Additionally, most of the characters seemed to grow a bit throughout the novel. With that being said, there was a diverse cast of characters, I would however, suggest looking up trigger warnings before reading this book.

Anything But Fine follows Luca, a gay teenager. Luca suddenly finds himself lost after he falls down the stairs, breaking his foot and effectively crushing his dreams of becoming a famous ballet dancer. Luca doesn’t know who he is without ballet, and now his school is taking away his ballet scholarship because he can no longer dance. He is feeling completely overwhelmed with the change of a new school and no more ballet, but things start to change once he meets Jordan at his OT appointment. Meanwhile, at his new school he also meets Amina, a friendly Muslim-American girl.

Amina honestly turned out to be my favorite character in the story. The way the author describes her faith and the racism she faces sometimes was very well written. I also enjoyed the budding romance between Jordan and Luca. I could empathize with Luca and understand how it might feel to fall in love with someone that isn’t out.

I highly recommend this book full of diverse characters. It held my attention throughout the book. The author did an excellent job making the story relatable. I would love to have a friend like Amina in real life. I also really enjoyed the author interview included at the end of the audiobook. It really made me feel a connection with Tobias Madden. I can’t wait to read more from this author!

ANYTHING BUT FINE is a fantastic coming of age story!

I love the pure joy that reading a wonderful debut novel makes me feel. For me, it felt really easy to fall into Tobias's writing style and story telling. As an American reader, I enjoyed being immersed in the Australian setting, and the Aussie lingo was easy enough to navigate.

I think YA contemporaries, this book included, are important because those young adult years can be brutal as you try to find yourself while wading through all of life's obstacles. You may not even realize or want to admit that you're going through something until you recognize yourself in a character or relate to a situation in the book you're reading. I found both Luca's and Jordan's journeys endearing. Luca's whole world was dance -- being a dancer felt like his entire identity until it was ripped away from him with his injury. After he hurt himself, he had to find out who he was without dance. On the other side, Jordan has this "golden boy" persona, but he's hiding a major part of himself for fear of not being accepted. Both of their paths to self-rediscovery are windy and a bit bumpy, but they help each other to get there. Their growth was my favorite part of this story!

Matthew Backer narrates the audiobook of ANYTHING BUT FINE impeccably! He really brought Luca to life, giving this Aussie story a great voice. *Bonus: Be sure the listen to the conversation between Matthew and Tobias at the end of the audiobook! I loved hearing how they each gave so much of themselves to this book.

Overall, I enjoyed ANYTHING BUT FINE and absolutely recommend it! I am looking forward to reading more from Tobias Madden.

CW: homophobia, islamophobia

I really enjoyed this book! It had a great, diverse cast of characters, and it felt like the main side characters were really well developed. As frustrating as I occasionally found the MC, Luca, I still really liked him and the frustrations definitely comes from him having a bit of a life crisis.

Luca is a ballet dancer, hoping to attend the Australia Ballet School, but a misstep has him tumbling down a flight of stairs, horribly fracturing his foot. This isn’t a spoiler, it happens in the first chapter. I really enjoyed reading about a male ballet dancer, as there aren’t even that many books about any ballet dancers. I did ballet for a number of years as a kid and again as an adult, and I do love it. I think my appreciation has grown now that I’m older, I didn’t love it as a kid.

So, this fractured foot hugely impacts on Luca’s life, as he’s been doing ballet since he was 3 years old (now 16). Because of it he loses friends, makes new friends, meets a cute boy at the occupational therapists office, and has to make some tough decisions and realizations about where his life is going to go if he can’t dance professionally.

I listened to the audio of this and really enjoyed the narrator, I think he did a great job. I’ve hardly listened to any audiobooks narrated with Australian accents, so this was a nice change. There was an author Q&A at the end, with the narrator, and hearing the narrator’s natural/normal voice, really showed how much range he has, as I don’t think that any of the book was narrated with his natural/normal voice.

Very good book, excellent debut, definitely recommend, especially if you enjoy ballet.

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

Anything But Fine was a really cute book. In it, you will meet Luca and he's pretty good at what he does: Ballet. Well, he was until he had an unfortunate accident that actually ends his career and dream. Ballet is all he knows and he's not quite sure what to do with his life now. It also doesn't help that he lost his school scholarship since he is no longer dancing.

Before he meets Jordan, he's not really excited to go to a new school. Especially without all his friends. Things definitely change for the better after Jordan though. So, it's safe to say he's a little excited about a new school due to a possible new crush.

Now the characters were pretty likable throughout the book. I also really liked how it was set in Australia because of the accents. Okay, I liked it for other reasons, but the accents will always be a huge plus for me. I also really enjoyed the friendships being developed over the romantic ones. Not that I hated or dislike Luca and Jordan being together. I totally liked them. Possibly loved. I just really enjoyed the friendships more.

In the end, I'm really happy that I got the chance to jump into this. The narrators did such a good job and definitely made me want to keep listening. Not sure if Tobias has another book coming out but I will be on the lookout for sure.

Will be on my list of recommendations

Okay, it's not like everybody is craving for the next LGBTQ young adult hit from Australia. But if they were, I'd certainly recommend "Anything but Fine" to them. Luca was always pretty confident in having a career in ballet. But when he hurts his foot and can't be a dancer anymore, he has to come to terms with himself and everything he used for self-identification so far. Things don't get any easier when he falls in love with a presumably straight jock, whom he meets in physical therapy first and at his new school second.

The novel is filled with charming characters, and even though the plot sometimes borders on contrived, all in all, it is pretty grounded. Everyone who liked "Kate in Waiting" or "Boy Queen" has just the right next book on their pile now.

A heartwarming and beautifully written novel that hooked me from the get go. I’m a sucker for Australian YA novels and this book did not disappoint. When I was listening to the audiobook, I actually made facial expressions when reacting to scenes. Laughing, smiling and even dropping my jaw. This book also discusses homophobia and Islamaphobia.
I also loved the inclusion of the one on one interview with the narrator and author at the end of the novel.
I definitely need to recommend this book as it’s so so so good.

Do I like it? Or do I like Australian accents? Both?

Anything but Fine follows Luca, a gay teenage boy who’s life falls apart after he falls down the stairs, breaking his foot and his ballet dancing dreams. Luca finds himself having to find out who he is outside of the small ballet world he was in for the first 16 years of his life. New school, new friends, new self.

So I think your ability to like this story will be entirely dependent on your ability to like Luca as a character. The story is told entirely through his perspective and he is the entire crux of the story. If you don’t like him then I doubt the story will be good for you. I, however, found him very likable and sympathetic even when he was being a little shit. Which would happen sometimes, he is a teenage boy going through A LOT. I found something totally relatable in the removing of oneself from things that upset him and the way of insisting everything is fine and generally acting fine when you are taking things basically day by day, minute by minute. But not really being able to look beyond or around that small frame of time without having a little bit of a breakdown.

Luca is definitely very passive throughout the story which may frustrate some, but felt like a real reaction to the things happening to him. His entire personality was based around one thing and suddenly it was gone. He kind of forms his entire personality around the next ‘thing’ and doesn’t really discover the issues with that until the end. But again, this felt realistic to me. Because the character journey was him discovering himself though, it means he doesn’t really become a ‘whole’ person until near the end. Which may be frustrating (but it helps if you are listening to it in an Australian accented audiobook).

Luca gets involved with TJ, who is basically the most popular guy in school and supposedly, straight. TJ wants to hide their relationship until he can figure it out himself. I actually really liked the direction this went in, as both Luca and TJ are painted as sympathetic and neither really in the wrong for their feelings over the matter.
He also makes friends with Amina. Who was a great character and I can’t believe she has less than five million friends for being so nice. I did like that they called out racism in Australia through her character which I feel like is kind of ignored a lot.
His relationship with his dad is also really interesting. I liked their dynamic and how they both grew from his accident.

There’s definitely some teenage embarrassing cringe moments that I struggled with as a second hand embarrassment sufferer.

Overall, I enjoyed this! The Australian accents really smoothed over most of the faults I might have and made the characters all super likable.

Thanks to Netgalley and RB media for a copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review!

When Luca falls down the stairs in a freak accident his whole life is torn apart. Not only is he forced to quit ballet, which he thought would be his future, but also has to move schools and make new friends. Thank goodness students at his new school include kind, nerdy Amina and gorgeous sportsman Jordan.

Pros:
-A quick, easy read that still deals with some important issues such as bullying and the pressure placed on young people about their future.
-Amina! What an adorable person. She never makes judgements and takes Luca under her wing immediately. A precious baby angel who deserves the world.
-The relationship between Luca and his father was both very realistic and relatable. Lucas'dad was probably more understanding than he should have been but he doesn't let Luca get away with things he shouldn't. Luca respects him enough to feel bad when he has upset him as well, which is a rare trait in teen characters.

Cons:
-I wish we learned a little more about Luca's old friends. About midway through some stuff goes down that I feel would have held a bit more weight if they were awarded just a bit more believable personality.
-Luca and Jordan's relationship felt quite rushed. I wish we'd been able to spend some more time on it and its development. I really rooted for them but it sometimes felt like it was the dreaded insta-love.

All in all I really enjoyed it! It was fun, short and very Australian and is perfect pallette cleanser.

This is my first time listening to an Aussie audiobook and it was wonderful. Matthew Backer has such an expressive voice that made me feel like I was listening to a friend tell a story. It's also awesome when audiobooks have extra materials as well, especially a conversation between audiobook narrator and author.

This was genuinely a heartwarming delight. Compulsively read in almost one sitting. The interview with the author at the end was a very sweet touch. I would’ve loved to have this as a teenager.

This book was amazing, I absolutely loved it! It's a wonderful story of growing up and figuring out who you are. The characters are diverse and I genuinely loved them. I think my favourite character was Amina, she was so awesome and kind and unapologetically herself. I really liked Luca too although there were a few times, I don't know why, that I just felt a bit of a disconnect. Other than that I loved his story and how resilient he was and how he grew and learnt from his mistakes. I liked that his morals never wavered and he stood up for his friends as well as himself and he wasn't afraid to communicate his feelings. He also knew when to apologise and make it up to those he hurt. The only thing I would say is the it felt a bit rushed towards the end with him making amends with his old friend and refinding himself in ballet. I also really loved the narrator; a good narrator really makes the audiobook!
Overall I loved the story and I didn't want to put it down! So excited for Tobias' next book!