Monday, November 27, 2017

Autoboyography - Christina Lauren

Title: Autoboyography
Author: Christina Lauren
Format: Hardcover
Rating: 3 Stars

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Three years ago, Tanner Scott’s family relocated from California to Utah, a move that nudged the bisexual teen temporarily back into the closet. Now, with one semester of high school to go, and no obstacles between him and out-of-state college freedom, Tanner plans to coast through his remaining classes and clear out of Utah.

But when his best friend Autumn dares him to take Provo High’s prestigious Seminar—where honor roll students diligently toil to draft a book in a semester—Tanner can’t resist going against his better judgment and having a go, if only to prove to Autumn how silly the whole thing is. Writing a book in four months sounds simple. Four months is an eternity.

It turns out, Tanner is only partly right: four months is a long time. After all, it takes only one second for him to notice Sebastian Brother, the Mormon prodigy who sold his own Seminar novel the year before and who now mentors the class. And it takes less than a month for Tanner to fall completely in love with him.
 
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I feel like I am in the minority with this book.  I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it either.  Mostly, it just drove me wild that there was NO PLOT!  The plot, really, can be summed up as: Tanner pines over Sebastian for 300 pages. 

What I did like:
*Gay and Bisexual characters!  I think it's so important to have visibility for the LGBT community.  I know the community has come a long way over the years, but there are still so many people who genuinely don't believe in equal rights for the community.  There's a long way to go.

*Audrey - I think Audrey was the most well-developed character in the book (and that's saying something, because she's hardly ever in the book, AND she's not even really that well developed.)

What I didn't Like:

*Tanner and Sebastian
- Tanner was the main character and he was just kind of blah.  He didn't really have much substance to him.  He wasn't really well developed either.  He was just flat and didn't seem that endearing. 
-Sebastian was just a jackass.  I certainly appreciate how hard it must be to be gay and Mormon, but that's no excuse to treat Tanner like crap. He broke up with Tanner a couple times, and led Tanner on, jerking Tanner around and making Tanner think that something might happen even if it wouldn't. 

*Tanner's Parents - they were totally wishy-washy and played supportive without actually seeming that supportive.  Like they would say that they totally love and accept him no matter what, but then when they move to effing UTAH, they make him stay in the closet, because hey: Mormon's.  Sure son, we love you so much, we want you to go back in the fucking closet! 

*Plot?!  Where was it?  Seriously, where did it go?  Sometimes reading a book with no plot works, but not here.  It was just Tanner whining the entire time about how he was in love with Sebastian.

*Tanner and Seb's "relationship."  - Okay, so they spent a lot of time hiking, and talking about how Sebastian is Mormon, and how he won't call himself gay because of that.  But did they ever really talk about anything deeper and really get to know each other?  I don't know - and I thought it was weird.  How can you love someone if you never really get to know them?

Overall, the book was just a dud.  It didn't really hit home with me the way I hoped it would.

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