This was a cute book! It follows a girl named Amelia, who embarks on a road trip with her best friends to go to a meet-and-greet for her favorite content creator.

Amelia was bold, goofy and enjoyable to read about, and I liked her friends as well. None of them are the most fleshed out characters, but they were distinct from each other and they were fun to follow.

The queer representation was great, as I've found to be the case in most, if not all, of Becky Albertalli's books. I loved that almost all of the characters were casually queer and that Albertalli touched on some important topics within the LGBTQ+ community, as she usually does. She has a way of weaving significant issues such as queerbaiting/accusations of queerbaiting into her books in a way that is thought-provoking and meaningful without being too in your face or pulling readers out of the story.

Another super fun element of this book, particularly for fans of Albertalli's previous works, was the cameos. Characters from her two most recent books popped up briefly in this one and it was so nice to see them again.

The plot was interesting as well. It dealt a lot with fame and the parasocial relationships so many people form with their favorite celebrities. For anyone who has read and enjoyed I Was Born For This by Alice Oseman, I'd definitely recommend checking this book out, or vice versa, as they both contain fascinating discussions about fame, fandom, and the intersection between the two.

My only issue when reading this was the romance, or lack thereof. Don't get me wrong, I think Amelia and Natalie were super cute together and I enjoyed the sweet little moments they shared throughout the book. However, in my opinion, we didn't get nearly enough of them. Albertalli's books usually put character development and growth at the forefront while romance takes the backseat but in this book, particularly, there was hardly any romance. It was obvious that the characters liked each other but it was only acknowledged in the most subtle of ways until nearly the end of the book. I would've liked to see more interaction between the two of them rather than so much of the relationship development existing only in Amelia's inner thoughts.

That said, this was a fast-paced, enjoyable book and for those who love Albertalli's writing, or those who love a feel-good young adult contemporary with a small subplot of romance, I'd recommend giving it a try.

*review to be posted on saysmesaysmom.com on 6/10.*

Thank you Harper Collins and Netgalley for this eARC, these opinions are my own. Freakin hilarious! It’s Prom and Amelia has just asked her favorite YouTube content creator, Walter, to prom. It’s a long shot that he’ll see it. She doesn’t know what it is, she just feels like they would get along. When he came out, his words were the first she’d heard that summed up her own journey with her bisexuality. He seems genuinely sweet. Then her best friend, Nat’s, relationship falls apart at Prom and all thoughts of Walter vanish. That is until she finds out he’s having a meet and greet in a few days not to far from where they live. Her friend Zora is already going there to see her girlfriend. They can roadtrip and there’s not a better way to keep Nat’s mind off her ex-girlfriend, who Amelia does not like. So the three of them, along with Nat’s twin brother Mark, set out so Amelia can meet her favorite creator/social media crush. What will Walter be like? Them connecting is a long shot but not impossible. Also has she never notice how pretty Nat’s hair is? Or how sweet her laugh and dimples are? I think Amelia is probably my favorite Becky Albertalli character yet and that is saying something as I love so many of them! She’s witty, smart, and incredibly lovable! I also love that we get some cameos in this one! Also some references to characters from books by other authors that absolutely had me smiling! Amelia, her friends, and the various supporting characters, especially her little sister Audrey, are all charming! Hilarious, touching, full of the warm and fuzzies, and super lovely! Absolutely recommend Amelia, if Only!

Becky Albertalli is one of my favorite authors and yet I am always surprised by how much I enjoy her books. If you’ve read any of her other books then you know that the characters were hilarious and sweet, the friendships were strong, and the main character was relatable and slightly oblivious. I loved it. But what really stood out to me was how relevant the message of this book was. This is a necessary read for anyone who has ever been a part of any fandom, or even worshipped any celebrity. She does an amazing job of reminding the reader that famous people are really just people, and that personal relationships are far more real and valuable than parasocial ones. This was one of my favorite reads in a long time and I feel that it touched on topics that aren’t necessarily explored all the time.

Aside from the important message of this book, the relationships between Amelia and her friends were so wonderful. The friends-to-romance arc was masterfully done and did not feel rushed or drawn out, which I feel is hard to do with these types of plots. Albertalli did not rely too much on events that happened before the book to drive the romance, and there was crucial character development actually done on the page. I love love loved this book and can see myself rereading it as soon as it comes out.

Thank you to NetGalley and the published for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Becky Albertalli so beautifully captures the bisexual experience, and ‘Amelia, If Only’ is no exception. This is an excellent standalone YA novel that has some minor character/world overlap with the wonderful ‘Imogen, Obviously,’ that returning readers will love and new readers won’t feel alienated by.

In the wake of her best friend Natalie’s break up with her awful on-again, off-again girlfriend, Amelia drags her friends on a road trip to attend her favorite YouTuber Walter’s first event since starting a solo channel. It’s a purely altruistic trip to distract Natalie from her breakup and absolutely NOT because Amelia is A) terrified of Natalie’s ex winning her back and B) harboring a giant parasocial crush on Walter.

As a protagonist, Amelia is a LOT. She’s constantly using humor to circumvent vulnerable conversations and, when she does finally get honest, the switch flips so fast it can give readers whiplash. But she’s also so real. SPOILER ALERT. Because, yeah, allowing your bisexual self to finally own up to a crush on a friend and then immediately losing all semblance of cool because OH MY GOD YOU’RE SO IN LOVE is a canonical experience. Becky doesn’t make the rules of a bisexual coming of age, she simply documents them.

Like its lead, ‘Amelia, If Only’ is also a LOT. It explores the aforementioned crushes, but also: parasocial relationships, the stickiness of shipping real people (especially queer shipping), the transition from high school to college, and the melancholy nostalgia it brings for a chapter you haven’t even started yet. It’s a lot of themes for one book — but Amelia is experiencing it all at once, so why shouldn’t us readers? The result is a smart, relatable, and joyful trip. 5*.

Oh and Becky, PLEASE make the next book about Walter and you know who.

Thank you to HarperCollins Children’s Books and NetGalley for providing this e-arc.

This was SUCH a fun read! I loved Amelia and her narration and her absolute batshit-ness. I loved Walter, and Mark, and Zora, and Edith, and Natalie, and the glimpse of Tess and Imogen! I love how absolutely useless these sapphics are.

If you like Albertalli’s other books, you will love Amelia, If Only. With bonus references to Imogen, Obviously characters. It has Albertalli’s humor and heart. Loved it.

This pains me to say, but I didn't enjoy this one. The jumping back and forth to YouTube transcripts and comment sections just didn't draw me in, and I skimmed those parts. And I didn't like Amelia, which isn't a requirement for me to like a book, but she was grating.

Nothing says true love like a parasocial relationship with a semifamous YouTuber—or so Amelia figures. So they've never met in person and their only interaction was in the comments section...surely, if their lives overlapped, there'd be...well, not necessarily sparks. But maybe. There'd be a *chance*.

Oh, teenagers.*

You know going into an Albertalli book that it's going to be a fun romp, and this is no exception. The energy reminds me a little of Sophie Gonzales's "The Perfect Guy Doesn't Exist"—the way that, in "Perfect Guy", Ivy writes this genuinely terrible fanfic and is perfectly okay with it (still my favourite thing about the book), while here, Amelia throws herself into appreciation of what sounds like a pretty (intentionally, as far as the book is concerned) mediocre YouTube channel and refuses to hear any criticism. It all feels very human, I guess; I love YA in which teenagers get to be average teenagers instead of award-winning prodigies or whatever.**

Anyway, cue a road trip with friends who are browbeaten into submission so that Amelia can finally, finally meet this guy in person. This is set in the same universe as "Imogen, Obviously", so some of those characters pop up again, and it's nice to see how much of this is about friendship as much as it is about relationships. I think this is probably 3.5 stars for me—it's not likely to be one I'll return to—but I'm here for the chaotic energy and the lack of a true bad guy. (Do I think Amelia will last with her paramour? Not really. But it's YA, so it probably is eternal true love.) I wouldn't be sorry to see another book in this universe.

*I mean, I know adults who think this way too. So maybe it's more of an "oh, humanity"?

**I also love YA in which someone is a movie star or secretly a princess or goes to med school at sixteen (though in the latter case I usually end up shouting at the book). I'm like an onion, okay? Onions have layers.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

I was so excited to read Amelia, If Only, but unfortunately, this one just wasn’t for me. It was sweet, and I always appreciate a YA novel with strong queer representation and positive adult allies, but I struggled to connect with the story.

A lot of the novel focused on Amelia trying to meet and analyzing past content from a YouTuber she admires, only for the romance to develop with someone else, who, to me, wasn’t fully fleshed out. The friends-to-lovers dynamic could have been explored more deeply, and I kept expecting something bigger to come from all the Reddit threads, YouTube comments, and tweets about Walter Holland, especially the way people were being creepy and demanding of such young public figures, but it never really did. I felt like I was just watching one weekend of their life, without much backstory or a sense of where they were heading next.

That said, I loved the cameos from Tess and Imogen (Imogen, Obviously fans will be happy!), and Amelia’s quick-witted, slightly chaotic humor made for some fun moments, though at times, it leaned into too much. An epilogue showing where the characters end up in college would have been a great addition.

Becky Albertalli writes some of my favorite books of all time.. so I had pretty high expectations. I unfortunately wasn’t able to connect to the characters in this one as much as I have in the past. I still enjoyed it and would recommend it. Thank you to the publisher and Net Galley for the ARC copy.

Becky Albertalli is a long-time fave, so I had pretty high expectations for this book going in, especially considering how much I loved her last book (Imogen, Obviously). While I didn't end up connecting with this one quite as much, I still loved so much of what it was doing: the conversations it was having around celebrity, fandom, and parasocial relationships; the excitement, confusion, fear, and nostalgia that surround the end of high school and the beginning of whatever comes next; the incandescence of the music of Simon and Garfunkel; and, especially, Amelia herself. Amelia is easily the most chaotic of Albertalli's protagonists, with her mind running a mile a minute and her jokes and nicknames coming fast and furious, but was both insanely charmed by her and related to her so much. (Especially when she gets called out for deflecting hard conversations with jokes.) The love story at the heart of all this was very cute and also relatable, with the way it was constantly forcing Amelia to question "am I in love or is it just the fact that we're both queer and single?" Also, I LOVED the cameos we got from Kate and Anderson (from Kate in Waiting) as well as a number of familiar faces from Imogen, Obviously!

I traditionally have enjoyed Becky Albertalli's books. I appreciate the inclusivity she has in her stories and the quirkiness of her characters, but this one, well, it was too much. I had to DNF this at 50% because I found Amelia, the MC, just too much. It felt like she was trying to hard with this one and everything felt extra. Perhaps, I'm aging out of enjoying YA, but between the heavy usage of social media (YouTube, Tumblr, etc.) to talking about parasocial relationships (I didn't even know that there was an official terminology for such things!) and over usage of MILF....like FFS, it just didn't hit for me.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I adore Becky Albertalli and everything she writes! This was a fun read. I cannot wait to buy a physical copy when it comes out!

This book is a complete hot mess, but it's a fun mess. Our main character, Amelia, is a very chaotic bisexual who provides almost constant commentary throughout the book. She's very funny and out of pocket, but also so oblivious at the same time. Her friend group has good chemistry as well, there's quite a bit of great dialogue between them all.

However, I think this book spent almost too much time joking around and not quite enough establishing the relationships of the characters. While I liked Amelia and Natalie, I didn't really feel their chemistry until much later in the book. The level of joking between the friend group all flowed so naturally it almost had the unintended effect of me finding them better as friends. Zora and Mark are great fun characters but I didn't feel super connected to them or know all that much about them beyond the surface level.

As well, so much of the book focuses on Walter and Hayden and their drama via news articles and Reddit posts. While I understand this was to highlight the intensity of parasocial relationships, I found it sometimes unnecessary or distracting to the story.

Despite these complaints, this book is still very enjoyable, and I credit that to Amelia. She's such a wild funny character, I really liked reading the book through her lense. Everything felt life or death, and nothing could happen without a comment, opinion, or challenge being issued. Sometimes she annoyed me, sometimes she made me laugh, and sometimes I couldn't believe her confidence.

Overall, this book is all over the place and though the romance is still pretty cute, it feels underdeveloped. However, the great cast of characters (though I wish I knew more about some of them) and humor in this book were able to redeem it for me. 3.9/5 stars rounded up.

I love Becky Albertalli and the way she writes queer teenagers and the lovely inclusive universe she’s created for them all. Her books are exactly what I want my kids to read and I always enjoy them myself, too. That being said, this one wasn’t my favorite of hers. It had a lot of good points, namely the complex and neurodivergent characters, the deep emotional analysis, and her rare ability to make complex feelings so perfectly pinpointed and relatable. But the overall plot just wasn’t super there for me. The underlying emotional propulsion was missing, which is unusual for Albertalli. The whole book felt like it was written from slightly too intellectual a place, which made it just a tiny bit boring. Also, I was really bothered by Mark as a character as he was totally undeveloped, the twin relationship was completely unexplored, it seemed completely pointless for him to be there, and then right at the end he became a plot device. Still a solid book as I’d expect anything from Albertalli to be, but not a standout for me.

Okay, first off, I love Becky Albertalli books. So I knew I was going to enjoy this, but I loved it more than I expected! Imogen, Obviously is probably my favorite Albertalli book, so when this title was announced, I was pumped. I'll have to wait until I give it a re-read, but it may be the new reigning champion of Becky's books, at least to me.

Becky Albertelli’s gift is being capable of describing most accurately the experience of having a crush and putting into words those fleeting feelings that, barely a month after, you can't explain to yourself either.

Even if “queerness” is still the main subject and I love how she focused the entire story on the difficulties of understanding what “being bisexual” looks like and feels, I also appreciated the importance of explaining that parasocial crushes can be used as a healthy tool to escape reality - since you already know nothing will ever happen, what’s so bad in dreaming about it?
But we also see the ugly part of it, things that people who ever had a “fan-girl phase” know well — those posts and accusations gave me war flashbacks, especially knowing that so many people still think is their right to speculate about celebrities’s sexuality.

I love BA’s stories and the easy way I feel part of them, even if I'm not her targeted audience anymore.
But there's always something that holds me back; essentially, I just think her stories are a lot. I don't mean it negatively but, for example, Amelia here is a lot to take as a person and her friends will inevitably act like kids because, as someone in their 20s, that's how I perceive them. Their problems and crises rightly feel like the end of the world to them but not to me, and even if I can convince myself that both POVs are okay, I can't help but cringe at times.
I appreciate her stories more for the good they do in speaking about sexuality or the lack of it, the absence of intentionally creating drama and accepting ourselves for who we are - flaws and all -, more than the plots and whatnot.

Thanks to HarperCollins Children’s Books, HarperCollins and NetGalley, who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest opinion.

This was a classic Becky Albertalli--funny, inspiring, thoughtful, and clever. Her characters spring to life, and they feel immediately as if they are friends I have known for years. I loved Amelia's friends, accompanying them on their road trip, and watching them grow and their relationships change. The beginning felt a little slow, and Amelia's character stood out to me as a little annoying for the first half. However, once they arrived at Blackwell and met Edith and Walter, the plot picked up quickly and became so much more enjoyable.

This book was such a delightful read! From the very first page, I found myself completely immersed in the story. The writing was so approachable and warm, making it easy to connect with the characters and the plot. I loved how the book felt both inviting and engaging, without ever being too complex or hard to follow. It was just the right mix of comfort and intrigue, and I truly enjoyed every moment of it. It’s a wonderful read that I’d happily recommend to anyone looking for a heartwarming escape!

I was super excited to see this one -- Albertalli's other works and particularly Simon vs the Homosapiens Agenda helped me come to peace with my own identity as a high schooler. I'm also a huge fan of books that explore internet fame, parasocial relationships, etc. Albertalli + wlw + exploration of YouTube fame? I was 100% in from the start.

I do think the first ~60% of the book dragged a tad and was quite predictable. I also think that's kind of the point. Amelia is the ONLY one in her life who doesn't get what's happening around her and her friends are like, "yes we get it," and honestly? I've been there. It's so real. I think the slow start worked out pretty well, but teens might be less inclined to push through it than some of Albertalli's other books. I certainly wasn't as drawn in as I have been in the past.

Once the action began to pick up, though, I flew through this one. Particularly enjoyed Walter's character (&the way Albertalli uses him to comment on parasocial relationships, queerbaiting & whatever that has been twisted to mean, and chronically-online shipping discourse. I'm reading it as a commentary on her own experience coming out. Huge power move on her part and so incredibly necessary). Also a big fan of the way Albertalli's characters FEEL so high-school. Like, at times over the top, at times a bit exaggerated? Yes. But also -- I saw a lot of what was bouncing around in my own tumblr high school brain reflected here. I also loveeeed Zora's verb tense thing. Such a fun character quirk. Big fan.

Overall, recommended, especially for preexisting Albertalli fans. 4 stars.