I have to say, I was totally taken with Imogen Scott within the first handful of pages of this book. A soon to be senior who is the quintessential ally to everyone LGBTQIA+. As a straight ally, she fights for the cause and simultaneously questions what her place should be in queer dominant places - something her friends help her understand as she goes. Imogen isn't perfect, she messes up quite a lot actually, but her internal monologue shows her observant and often times hilarious nature that make her an easy character to love.

The whole premise of the book is set around a college visit - Imogen is going to visit her best friend Lili at Blackwell College and meet all of her new college friends. Only, there's a problem. Lili, newly out and insecure about her past, lied about their relationship and all of Lili's friends think that Imogen is her ex-girlfriend that she's on really (really) great terms with. Everyone (obviously) instantly loves Imogen, and talk fairly consistently about the "bi vibes" she gives off - which leads to Imogen not knowing how to tell them she's straight.

Or is she?

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for sending me an arc of this book!

I absolutely adored this story! (The cover is stunning, and I can’t wait to see it on my bookshelf.)

As a queer person, Imogen is an incredibly relatable character. I appreciated seeing her journey throughout the novel. The sapphic representation in the book is phenomenal. Imogen and Tessa’s love story is wonderful. I cannot get over them.

10/10 recommend!

I LOVED this book so much. Imogen, full-on bisexual disaster, was infinitely relatable. It was painful to read her constantly question herself and doubt her queerness and her right to belong in queer spaces, because I've been there and done exactly that.

On one hand, this book is a biting critique of queer discourse and gatekeeping. On the other hand, it's an achingly sweet love story. And both of those are somehow perfectly balanced throughout the book.

I love how a lot of it is told through texts, with the accompanying breathless anticipation and butterflies. It's just so sweet.

And Gretchen. Gretchen is an absolutely terrible friend and Imogen should absolutely not forgive her because she was horrid. She was necessary, as a vehicle for the discourse and gatekeeping, but wow was she awful to Imogen. Though those interactions did offer Imogen the chance to grow into herself a bit and learn to assert her identity.

I listened to the audio and found the narration well-done if very slow - I actually listened at 2.5x speed which I never do. The character voices are distinct, the first-love butterflies and giddy breathlessness was spot-on, and Gretchen's parts were suitably awful.

The only thing that I didn't like so much about the audio was the way the long strings of text messages were narrated, with the character's initials at the beginning of each message. I get that it was necessary to make it clear who was saying what, it was just a little jarring to listen to. But that's a minor quibble.

This is probably my favorite Becky Albertalli book (and I've read a lot of them.) Imogen was just so sweet and relatable.

This is an excellent book for libraries and teen classrooms as it handles the queer discourse and gatekeeping so well and that is such an important topic, especially for teens who are just coming to terms with their own identities.

*Thanks to NetGalley, HarperCollins Children's Books, and Balzer + Bray for providing an early copy for review.

This book was very powerful, it was so personal for the author and you can tell she poured her whole self into this novel and it was just such a fantastic read. if you are a Becky Albertalli fan of any sort you will definitely enjoy this heartwrenching novel.

I could not get enough of Imogen and her friends! This story is so well written and unfolds beautifully. The reader finds out things about Imogen at the same time that she herself is finding them out, and you are equally excited and confused and happy for her in all her realizations.

Albertalli strikes gold yet again. Her latest work strikes the reader right in the heart. Imogen and Tessa's tale is smiling inducing. I couldn't put down this book and read it all day late into the night.

Thank you to HarperCollins Children's Books, Balzer + Bray, and NetGalley for providing an eARC for a honest review.

This was such a sweet and funny rom-com with so many sincere and vulnerable moments of hard truths and thought provoking questions. I love the friendship Imogen and Lili protect, when you are lucky enough to find real friends like this, cherish each other. The sisterhood bond Imogen and Edie share reminded me so much of my own sister. The text conversations felt so real and sweet and funny. This book was a great read and I’m so excited for many more friends to read it!

I love Becky Albertalli’s work, and I really love Imogen, Obviously! This story is clearly inspired by Becky’s lived experience as a queer woman who was forced to come out after years of readers questioning her right to tell her stories as a straight-passing woman. This honesty shines through, and is made my heart hurt for Imogen and Becky and every person who has felt like they had no choice but to come out. I think Imogen is so easy to root for, because she feels so real, and so sweet and naive. She feels like me and so many other girls I knew as teen. Her queer awakening is real, sweet and often funny. There are so many times she is wondering if certain things make her queer, and I loved that. This is exactly how so many young queer kids think. They really believe what music they listen to, or how they dress, determines their queerness.

Also, this book has a giant cast of characters. I wish some were developed more, but I loved Imogen’s bestie, Lili and the love interest, Tessa. The romance was wonderful. Tessa had a real Josette from MUNA vibe, in my opinion. I also think Gretchen was a super interesting character but I really don’t like her, but that’s the point. There’s a lot of queer people who gatekeep without meaning to, and Gretchen is that. I honestly got so mad at her, but that was the point! I wish her storyline wrapped up more, but other than that, these characters all had a fun little story.

This is a solid 4.5/5. I wish there was a little more character work, but this tugged at my heartstrings and made me feel very seen. This will be so important to so many young readers.

Imogen, Obviously by Becky Albertalli is SUCH a cute book! I’d already heard such good things about this one, and the book trailer caught my attention, so I was grateful to be able to read it.

This book follows high school senior Imogen, who is spending the weekend with her best friend who is already off at college and came out as pansexual a few months before moving away. Shortly after arriving, though, Imogen finds out that her best friend, in a moment of insecurity, told her new queer friends that she had an ex-girlfriend and that it’s Imogen, something that is completely untrue. And Imogen is such a people pleaser and a good friend, that she decides to fully go along with this lie.

Imogen, who is such an ally and surrounded by queer people in her usual circle, has often seen herself as the token straight, but now, for the first time ever, she gets to wonder if maybe… she’s not. And that’s the story we get to witness over the course of about a week. She’s on campus for the weekend, goes home, and the impact of that weekend stays with her.

This book was very cute and fun AND nuanced and thoughtful in its approach to coming out and the existential crisis of it all. And the characters are lovely and so easy to fall in love with. I wanted to be friends with every single one of those college kids. And I felt so much love and empathy toward Imogen, especially as a fellow people pleaser.

I loved this entire book made space for such different expressions of identity and complicated coming-out experiences and even made space for the antagonist to be somewhat understood.

If you’re looking for a cozy book with incredible characters, this is the book to read.

PERFECTION. that is all this book was. I cried, laughed, and felt like I was right there with Imogen. This was a perfect coming of age novel dealing with identity, love and friendships and nothing could've made it more perfect in my opinion.

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for my advanced copy. all thoughts are my own.

3.75

What an adorable book! Imogen stays with her best friend Lili on a college visit and finds out Lili told all of her friends that they used to date, so Imogen goes along with it despite being “hopelessly heterosexual”. Except Imogen can’t stop thinking about Lili’s friend Tessa, which maybe isn’t so straight after all.

I really liked Imogen’s exploration of her bisexuality and how queerness is different from person to person. Yes there are people like Imogen’s sister and Gretchen who know from a young age and who can’t hide it, but that doesn’t invalidate people who are straight passing or people who take longer to realize and/or accept their queerness.

I loved this as a coming of age story and liked the glimpse of the happy for now at the end. I was not a fan of the antagonist sounding like someone who is terminally online just repeating twitter’s queer discourse of the week, but at the same time I do understand that choice because there are absolutely too many people like that.

Overall, this was very sweet and I’m so glad that teens today have this kind of representation!

I see that this one has a lot of support, but I think it is more for Becky Albertalli than for the actual story…if someone read this with no backstory or author knowledge, I think they would find it repetitive, sometimes slow, lacking a compelling plot, and with forced themes. I did like the dialogue very much, but I didn’t attach to any characters in a meaningful way. It seems like Becky put herself in a scenario she would have liked to experience and then wanted it published. It was okay, but not what I have come to expect from her books.

💖REVIEW💖

Title: Imogen, Obviously
Author: Becky Albertalli
Rating: 5/5 ⭐️

Imogen, Obviously has been on my TBR for awhile, but I’m SO glad I finally made time to read it! I loved the story, but I think the author’s letter about her own experiences with discovering her sexuality and coming out made the book even more impactful.

Imogen’s journey toward discovering her sexuality wasn’t an easy one and I really appreciated that readers were given insight into some of her thoughts as she tried to figure everything out. I loved how accepting, positive, and wonderful most of the characters were, especially Lili, Tessa, and Edith. Honestly, I can’t think of anything I didn’t love about this book. I found the characters and pacing to be great, the setting was fun, and the amount of romance was just right.

This is a book that I’d happily recommend to older teens, young adults, and even adults. Thank you to NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

So, I really loved this for the most part and am so glad it was by first Becky Albertalli book.

Everyone in the friend’s group was a gem and I could honestly read more about them all. Imogen was precious and I just wanted her protected at all costs. And Tessa! Oh my. What a sweetheart. If only everyone could have their first crush/significant other be like Tessa.

I think just about every queer person can sympathize with Imogen and what she’s going through. However, I also sympathized with the overbearing gatekeeper of this story. She’s a teenager and has been dealing with homophobia for a long time. So, although she’s wrong about a lot and goes about things the completely wrong way, I felt like there should’ve been a better ending for her as well.

I recommend this, especially to teenagers. Even though I don’t agree with everything I do think this is a good place to start some important discussions about queerness and gatekeeping.

I received an ARC from Harper Collins Children’s Books / Balzer+Bray via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Imogen Scott may be hopelessly heterosexual, but she’s the greatest ally to her queer sister and two best friends. She’s such a great ally that when her friend Lili admits she’s told all her college friends that Imogen and Lili used to date, Imogen agrees to go along with the lie. And just like that, none of Lili’s friends know that Imogen is a raging hetero—not even Tessa. Of course, the more time Imogen spends with chaotic, freckle-faced Tessa, the more she starts to wonder if her truth was ever all that straight to begin with.

I just can't support such a story. While the queer reprsentation was mostly great, I absolutely hated Imogen and her two best friends. One criticizes other queer experiences, one lies. and one goes along with the lie. Not a great look for my community.

I love that Imogen, Obviously is out here to show the spectrum of journeys that one can experience when questioning and coming into their own sexual identity - I feel like this book would really resonate with a lot of my students. I felt like Albertalli tried to cover a lot of ground, which did make some of the myriad plot points not feel super explored/resolved, but I thought the romance was very sweet and I was really rooting for Imogen on her journey!

This was so cute! Even though Becky Albertalli is a famous YA author, this was my first book by her and I really enjoyed it. I loved how this book portrays that queerness isn't a race and people don't have to know by a certain time if they're queer. Imogen was also adorably insecure and I really liked her chemistry with Tessa.

I love all of Becky Albertalli's books, yet this one is my favorite yet. Not only are the characters wonderful, the story fun, and writing witty, but this book also tackles the realistic journey many teens face in coming to terms with their sexuality and the influence others' opinions can have on an individual's journey. Can't wait to recommend this to every teen looking for a fun queer romance.

Imogen, Obviously, textually, has the exact same vibes as the cover. If you picked this up off the shelf hoping for pink and butterflies, Becky Albertalli, as always, delivers. Imogen is extremely lovable and relatable, and this story is an eternally-needed representation of queer teen womanhood.