Max Reviews: What If It's Us?

Arthur is only in New York for the summer, but if Broadway has taught him anything, it's that the universe can deliver a showstopping romance when you least expect it. Ben thinks the universe needs to mind its business. If the universe had his back, he wouldn't be on his way to the post office carrying a box of his ex-boyfriend's things. ...But when Arthur and Ben meet-cute at the post office, what exactly does the universe have in store for them?

Photo taken from Carlo at blog.nationalbookstore.com.

Max doing book reviews again? Who would have guessed?

Hi, all! To start off 2020, I'll be doing a book review on Adam Silvera and Becky Albertalli's What If It's Us? I bought the book around July or August, but only got to it a few weeks ago. Now that I've had enough time to let the book sink in, I'll be listing my thoughts and overall feelings towards the book in the review below.

Quick credits: sunflower png created by LadyComma on DeviantArt.

ADAM SILVERA is an American author currently based on Los Angeles. Some hits of his include They Both Die at the End (2017), More Happy Than Not (2015), and History Is All You Left Me (2015). He is set to release Infinity Son, the first book in his Infinity Cycle series, in January 2020. Silvera wrote Arthur's chapters in What If It's Us.

BECKY ALBERTALLI is an American author best known for her Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda (2015), which was adapted into Love, Simon in 2018. She is currently based in Atlanta, Georgia, with her latest release being Yes No Maybe So. Albertalli is Jewish and penned Ben's chapters in What If It's Us.

I'll be honest––I ended up buying the book because, you know, it's got a queer love story. That and the book cover, which features Ben and Arthur missing each other by just this much.

After graduating from college and realizing that I was finally free from stacks of Lit and Philosophy readings, I thought that the best way to celebrate was to try and reignite my previous love for young adult (YA) literature. College never quite gave me the chance to read recreationally, given all I had to do from day one until the very last.

After coming across Albertalli and Silvera's collaboration that one night in July or August, I decided why not and purchased it feeling a little excited and a little more giddy than I'd like to admit. It took be two to three days to finish the book. It's not much of a heavy read, and I found myself going through the novel at a speed reminiscent of how I used to read in my younger years. And I'm not gonna lie: it felt great to do that again.

With that out of the way, here are my thoughts and comments.

Diversity and representation.
At some point in the 2010s, diversity and representation became more and more pronounced across media. It's not that stories about marginalized groups were never there to begin with; it's just that they weren't granted the same attention that your more common, run-of-the-mill YA would get. When I was younger, more common YA would feature straight white characters. There'd be a person of color or queer person acting as a best friend or sidekick, but that was about it.

It was (and still is, admittedly) rare for me to find YA lit that finally put marginalized groups in the spotlight. Typically, queer YA would focus on someone's coming out and their grappling with their sexuality, but never quite something as back-to-basics as them falling in love and struggling with other things unrelated to their sexual or gender identity.

I think this is where What If It's Us excels. Ben comes from a Puerto Rican background; and in one chapter, expresses deep sentiment and frustrations with how people tend to treat it. Arthur, on another hand, identifies as Jewish (but non-practicing) and is mentioned to have ADHD. These elements aren't overlooked throughout the novel, as they actually leak into family dynamic as well as Arthur and Ben's budding releationship.

And related to that, well––

The story is purehearted and as genuine as it can be.
It's a story about falling in love. It's a story about the rockiness that comes with moving on and falling somewhere else (as we see through Ben), and experiencing the wonderful but oh-so-painful firsts of a first relationship (as we see through Arthur). Ben and Arthur don't so much question their being queer; instead, we get to see the rockiness and the awkward firsts from a queer perspective.

And believe me, it's great to see books like these. I honestly think that queer people deserve more stories that are just, for the lack of better word, ordinary.

Sex positivity and consent.
Mini spoilers, but the attention paid to consent and sex positivity is pretty damn good. Ben doesn't judge Arthur because the latter wants to have sex. Instead, Ben checks in and reassures his boyfriend that should Arthur want to stop or back out, then that would be perfectly fine. Sexual intimacy isn't added for the sake of adding sexual intimacy or wanting to show that hey, we're doing this!. It's instead treated as something normal and, well, ordinary.

Genuinely interesting side characters.
All I'm gonna say is that Dylan and Samantha (penned by Albertalli) are two amazing side characters who deserve their own spin-off. Should Albertalli decide one day that she wants to write a spin-off concerning the two, then I'd gladly purchase the book when it comes out. They're actual sweethearts who are almost just as awkward as Ben and Arthur themselves, and, like the other pair, are trying to navigate their way into the relationship as well.

Drowning in pop culture.
We get it, they're in New York. Ben and Arthur are nerds. The story is set in 2017 or 2018 or somewhere near. The setting practically screams pop culture and Broadway.

Small nitpick on my part, but I felt like there was too many references. Maybe Arthur and Ben are just nerds and that's how they communicate or connect with one another, but at some point it stops feeling contemporary and starts feeling a little bit forced. Or oddly akin to a commercial of sorts. I don't know.

The epilogue.
Okay, hear me out. I know many people on GoodReads found themselves divided because of the epilogue, with some insisting that it wasn't really necessary. It's kind of like the polarizing reactions that fans had to the epilogue of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Many people wanted the epilogue to contain things like Arthur and Ben somehow starting a long-distance relationship, with Arthur being back in New York and maybe moving a little closer to Ben. But that wasn't how it worked. The readers were instead given the image of Arthur and Ben being close friends and were teased with the possibility of the two getting back together––because in Ben's words, "what if we haven't seen the best of us yet?". Or something along those lines.

Here's my hot take: I wouldn't have minded it if Arthur and Ben actually didn't get back together. The entire book revolves around the theme of granting second (and third, fourth, fifth...) chances, but consider that the two of them simply work better as friends. Consider showing the audience that what's not always meant to be (romantic love) can always give way to something that's better-suited (platonic love, friendship). I find that there aren't many books that get into this, and Silvera and Albertalli could have taken the opportunity to spin it another way.

Arthur's parents.
Throughout the book, we, the readers, are pretty much convinced that Arthur's parents would get a divorce at some point. And why wouldn't they––his mother rags on his father at every chance, the father's exasperation is undeniable, and it does take a toll on Arthur, much to his own chagrin. It's undenabily uncomfortable, and I feel that the parents chalking it up to "we're hot messes and that's what we love about each other!" isn't exactly the most believable or realistic option.

Some side characters seemed better developed than others.
Dylan and Samantha were so, so good. You read about that earlier.

But the rest seemed a little weird, a little lacking. For instance, Ethan and Jessie were there but we never quite seemed to know more about them aside from what the book stated. I felt that Ethan's behaviour towards Arthur couldn't simply just be explained by "I was awkward and ignored your messages because I was trying to break that your other best friend and I were dating".

Arthur's co-interns, Juliet and Namrata, could have had a little more to them, too. There's a recurring joke somewhere about roommates who went and succeeded at writing a dinasaur-themed erotica, but that's about it for them.

Then there's Hudson and Harriet, who just left a sour taste in my mouth for the most part. I get that they were a friend group with Dylan and Ben and that things just mostly don't work out if you date friends, but all I could think of was man thank god they don't seem to click as well as they did before.

Arthur and Ben simply don't work as well as they want to.
If you're still with me even after my opinion on the epilogue, thanks for sticking around! Here's mostly why I think that Arthur and Ben don't really work out that well.

The synopsis on the back cover already explained it: Arthur tries a little too much, and Ben barely at all. Which is understandable for both characters, given that this is pretty much Arthur's first contact with reciprocated romance, and Ben having come out of a breakup (or what seems to be a one). Given that it's Arthur's first go at dating someone, of course he'd feel insecure over Ben's ex. Given that Ben's prior relationship ended badly, of course he wouldn't completely be focused on dating someone new, even though the Someone New seems to be a big neon sign from the universe that Things Will Be Okay.

Furthermore, Arthur had some pretty high expectations for this whirlwind romance. Who wouldn't? When things start falling apart or when Ben fails to meet some expectations, it's reasonable for him to be upset. It's a learning lesson.

But shitty timing aside, things just don't seem to work out between them. The energy or the chemistry seems forced at most. Some moments are squee-worthy, but that aside, it ends up feeling like two boys trying their hardest just because the universe said so. They're a good pair of friends and they understand each other on a particular wavelength (Arthur enthusing Ben on his stories made me soft), but perhaps it's only on that level that they were meant to meet.

Character voice.
Man, I struggle with character voice a lot. Handling one and trying to make it as distinct as it can be without going overboard is already difficult enough; what more if there's two focal characters?

Unfortunately, both Silvera and Albertalli seem to struggle with this as well. At some points I forgot that I was reading Arthur's chapter and had to go back to the start of the chapter just to remind myself who the perspective character was. Nothing seems to be distinct, and at different points I had to rely on context clues: the side characters mentioned, the parents, the situation, etcetera.

Should I pay more attention as a reader? Yes. But when I have to return to the chapter marker nearly half of the time, I think that's pretty indicative of how the voices aren't as distinct. Things end up melding together––and with an overload of references to media and pop culture, it gets harder to distinguish who is narrating and who isn't.

The book does not have a strong plot.
What If It's Us can be divided into two main sections: (1) Arthur and Ben meet-cute and then subsequently search for each other with varying results, and (2) Arthur and Ben try to make their relationship work. That's quite literally all that happens. You get some other plotlines on the side such as Dylan and Samantha struggling to get out of the awkward rut, and eventually discovering why Ethan and Jessie were being weird about things, but that's about it.

I don't know––maybe it's just a me thing. Totally understandable. But I'm always game for something that runs a little bit deeper than the two of them trying to make things work.

It also felt to me like some of the bigger events in the story (Arthur's treasure hunt, for instance) were there just so that something big could happen. And while incredibly adorable upon first read, it gets me a little down that the other parts of the book seem to end up relying on Big Events instead of relying on the smaller parts of the story.

What If It's Us does a fairly okay job as it takes on the meet-cute trope. The meeting itself is pretty damn cute, and both Ben and Arthur are characters we want to root for. We want them to be happy. We want Arthur's expectations to be met. We want Ben to forget about Hudson and ride into the gay sunset with the cute boy who likes Hamilton a little too much.

But what happens after that? Can you still keep up the initial passion? Arthur and Ben desperately try to keep making things work, with some working too hard and others barely at all. And, well, at the end of the day, maybe it's all spark and no long-lasting flame. Maybe it's time to rely on things outside of the universe and its magnetic pull. Maybe.

It's an adorable read, but that's about it. There are unfortunately a couple of issues I can't overlook, and those issues ultimately keep me from enjoying the book at a hundred percent. At least it works as a reminder for me to not date anyone who just got out of a long-term relationship.

VERDICT: 2.5/5