I received this book for free in return for my honest opinion.

When I saw this book was T4T I jumped at the chance to read it. Gage and Arden are adorable teens just trying to figure themselves out. Being trans, family strife, trying to make friends, and big moves are enough individually to cause someone stress. Their moment of kismet in Nebraska was enough to both give them hope in the moment and give them something to keep hoping for.
As with most books I was left wanting deeper moments. More depth from the characters, more depth from the relationships. I would have happily read a longer book to get MORE. In a time where queerness/transness are being attacked and erased I am always grateful for more books to celebrate that.

This book was okay. I really liked the premise but the execution fell short.

I think part of it was the sheer number of characters. The number of friends involved with each boy was overwhelming and hard to keep track of.

I found myself having to backtrack to figure out who the friend belonged to.

Unfortunately, I felt like this was Underhill's weakest book so far. Like his last YA novel, it features 2 characters who fall in love in a single day. but in this book I felt no spark between the leads despite the fact that we spent way more time with them since the book itself went past that first day. I also thought Arden was pretty bratty to his mom at times, and Gabe was pretty consistently bratty towards his sister. So while I didn't hate this, I know Underhill can do better than this,

I received this book as a DRC thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins/Quill Tree Books. All opinions are my own.
Edward Underhill has quickly become a favorite author/automatic read for me. This the third book of his that I've read, and like the others genuinely enjoyed.

This was a fun and well paced dual-POV novel. I found it engaging and exciting, and I never wanted to put the book down. I often found myself so engrossed in this book's world that I would lose track of time or forget what I was doing.

The story follows our two teen MMC's, Arden and Gabe after they meet by chance at a motel in Nebraska. As they navigate big life changes, primarily moving across the country and finding new friends and where they belong in their new cities.
Arden and Gabe have opposite yet parallel journeys as Arden is from LA moving to a small down in the Midwest, and Gabe is from a small town in the midwest moving to Pasadena CA where the school has significantly more students than his last high school.
While Gabe is trying to figure out how to make friends in a city that has so many people you could probably stay virtually anonymous, Arden is learning just how small, small towns can be.

I loved that we got to see this dichotomy unfold throughout the story of Arden experiencing how Gabe felt growing up and visa versa. We get to see the growing pains of what it's like being the new kid at school, and the slow defrosting of how it feels to warm up to new friends.
We see meddling friends, navigating long distance friendships and relationships, tense family dynamics, and lots and lots of queer and trans joy.

I hope to see a sequel of this book. I would love to see what comes next for Arden, Gabe, and all their friends as they navigate some of them leaving for college while the rest are finishing their senior years, applying for college and deciding what next steps they want to take in life.

In Case You Read This was overall a cute story and a quick, fun read.
Arden and Gabe’s romantic chemistry wasn't that strong considering it’s a driving force and focus for much of the story. Their one night hanging out together was nice; they were starting to connect, but I didn’t see the instant connection and spark. That said, I can see their bond and desire to reconnect from the non-romantic side of things — caught up in the serendipity of finding someone so like themselves so randomly and projecting all that desire to be understood and have their problems recognized onto that person.
I lost track of who's who and how they mattered to the story with some of the side characters, especially towards the end when a bunch of friends of the main characters act as the impetus to bring the two of them together when they'd not had much page time or characterization to distinguish them beforehand. More could have been done to focus their roles in the story and keep all the various conflicts and connections tied together.

This book had me at this gorgeous cover.

Adren and his mom are making the move from LA to the small Michigan town his mother grew up in. Gabe is leaving his small town in Illinois to move to California with his family. Both trans boys happen to meet at a random hotel in Nebraska and bond over this and their favorite band Damaged Pixie Dream Boi. The boys decide to have one great memory of hanging out and don't exchange any info, which they both almost immediately regret.

They both end up struggling with their new locations but eventually make new friends. They are also both trying to find each other.

This was a quick read, the story was really sweet and cute. I was rooting for these boys to find each other again. Are are a bunch of great side characters. It did a good job dealing with change and being yourself.

This was a fun, fast read!

Thanks NetGalley and Harper Collins Children's Books for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

4 stars

In Case You Read This is a lighthearted novel full of queer and trans joy. I read this in two days when I haven’t read something that quick in weeks! This follows Arden and Gabe as they meet for one night in a motel in Nebraska. They bond through their love of a small indie band, something i can very much relate to, (i loved all the silly indie band names throughout). They end up not getting each others numbers and spend a majority of the rest of the book trying to find each other again.

I would say this is more of a coming of age novel rather than a romance. There definitely was a romance between Arden and Gabe but honestly i didn’t feel much of the supposed chemistry. I really enjoyed following each of the characters journey with their new moves and their interactions with the rest of the side characters. I think there was also just a bit too much going on at times with the two different characters going through moves and meeting all these people at one time, that definitely had me confused at first. Despite that, it was a very fun book that deals casually with the complexities of being queer in different types of cities as well as complicated family dynamics.

To be upfront— I had to DNF at 48%

Unfortunately, I didn’t enjoy this book as much as I thought I would. The cover was very eye-catching and the synopsis sounded promising. I really wanted to like this book, because I think stories about trans characters are super important, but it wasn’t for me. Honestly, I thought it was kind of boring.

I expected there to be more chapters of them at the motel, but there was only about one and a half. That made it hard for me to root for them to find each other because we didn’t get to see them building much of a connection.

I did enjoy the awkward dialogue when they met at the motel. It felt realistic and to me it wasn’t cringy even though it was awkward. There was potential for Arden and Gabe to have chemistry, but the lack of interactions between them made it hard to see that.

I did giggle at Arden’s new school’s mascot being Pretzels. And the PQC members were funny, though they didn’t have a lot of depth. There were A LOT of side characters and I don’t think most of them were very fleshed out.

Overall, I was just bored and unmotivated to continue reading. The writing style was good and the main characters were well developed, I just think the side characters and the plot needed to be fleshed out more. There is potential here and I think others could definitely enjoy this book!

This was such a good book. I loved the story and the writing so much. The characters were great and the story flowed smoothly. Will definitely read more books by this author in the future.