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Lovis Lily's Reviews > Imogen, Obviously
Imogen, Obviously
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⭐️ 2 ⭐️
this book was INFURIATING to me. my humble guess is that it is meant to convey some type of wisdom about queer labels and how we define them, but never in my life have I read a book that is so blatantly inconsistent in its own message. it is ripe with stereotypes while simultaneously trying to push "queerness" as something undefined and ambiguous. literally every single character in this book makes their "queerness" their entire personality. you listen to mitski? you're sooo queer! you wear flannels? man, you're a GODTIER gay!
god fucking damn it, becky.
I can see how this book might have been MILDLY relevant to a curious 14 year old in 2015 who spends all of their free time on tumblr, but in 2023? I think the fuck not. I have never met a single sane person who introduced themselves by announcing their sexual orientation and, to be fair, if you feel the need to make your sexuality your blanket personality the way these characters do then I firmly believe you have some soul-searching to do. I literally can't think of a single trait any of these characters had other than them being queer, which shouldn't even be considered a trait to begin with. it honestly wouldn't surprise me at all if this book started out as a fanfiction for a fandom with pre-made characters and thus there would have been no need to properly describe their personalities because they would have been implied to the reader from the start. it just feels to me like the author forgot that we don't know the characters like she does and that we need her to introduce them to us. in that, I feel like she failed with this one.
it's not an entirely bad book. it has its cute moments, for sure, but those moments are unfortunately overshadowed by the sheer inconsistency of it all. there's just too much shaming and one-upping each other's queerness going on between the characters for me to take whatever message this book is trying to convey to heart. being queer is not a competition. you can't "win" at being queer.
last but not least, let it be known that I am saying all of this as a queer person myself, and had I been a character in this book then surely me writing this review would have been seen as even more "proof" of my queerness. I mean, writing a bitter book review? that's sooooo queer!
jokes aside, I hope everyone else has a better time with this book than I did!
this book was INFURIATING to me. my humble guess is that it is meant to convey some type of wisdom about queer labels and how we define them, but never in my life have I read a book that is so blatantly inconsistent in its own message. it is ripe with stereotypes while simultaneously trying to push "queerness" as something undefined and ambiguous. literally every single character in this book makes their "queerness" their entire personality. you listen to mitski? you're sooo queer! you wear flannels? man, you're a GODTIER gay!
god fucking damn it, becky.
I can see how this book might have been MILDLY relevant to a curious 14 year old in 2015 who spends all of their free time on tumblr, but in 2023? I think the fuck not. I have never met a single sane person who introduced themselves by announcing their sexual orientation and, to be fair, if you feel the need to make your sexuality your blanket personality the way these characters do then I firmly believe you have some soul-searching to do. I literally can't think of a single trait any of these characters had other than them being queer, which shouldn't even be considered a trait to begin with. it honestly wouldn't surprise me at all if this book started out as a fanfiction for a fandom with pre-made characters and thus there would have been no need to properly describe their personalities because they would have been implied to the reader from the start. it just feels to me like the author forgot that we don't know the characters like she does and that we need her to introduce them to us. in that, I feel like she failed with this one.
it's not an entirely bad book. it has its cute moments, for sure, but those moments are unfortunately overshadowed by the sheer inconsistency of it all. there's just too much shaming and one-upping each other's queerness going on between the characters for me to take whatever message this book is trying to convey to heart. being queer is not a competition. you can't "win" at being queer.
last but not least, let it be known that I am saying all of this as a queer person myself, and had I been a character in this book then surely me writing this review would have been seen as even more "proof" of my queerness. I mean, writing a bitter book review? that's sooooo queer!
jokes aside, I hope everyone else has a better time with this book than I did!
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Imogen, Obviously.
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Reading Progress
April 28, 2023
– Shelved
April 28, 2023
– Shelved as:
tbr-upcoming
May 2, 2023
– Shelved as:
tbr-romance
May 17, 2023
–
Started Reading
May 21, 2023
–
Finished Reading
May 22, 2023
– Shelved as:
2-stars
Comments Showing 1-16 of 16 (16 new)
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Taylor
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rated it 2 stars
May 23, 2023 06:01PM
I appreciate this review! I’m about 50% in and so disappointed so far so I went looking for reviewers who felt the same. You articulated how I’m feeling about this book perfectly. None of these characters feel like fleshed out people to me. :/ I want to know who they are outside of their retrospective sexualities. I went to this obviously expecting exploring/questioning one’s sexuality to be a major theme of the book but I feel like the characters have not had a single conversation about anything else and it just reduces them to a “label� when they should be so much more than that.
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Taylor wrote: "I appreciate this review! I’m about 50% in and so disappointed so far so I went looking for reviewers who felt the same. You articulated how I’m feeling about this book perfectly. None of these cha..."aaaaaa thank you for saying this I'm so glad to hear I'm not the only one feeling this way about it!!! I was afraid that maybe my review was a bit too harsh bc I can see how this might appeal to a younger crowd but idk I just don't think I could recommend this to anyone and still have a clean conscience lol
I loved the romantic aspects of the book, but was infuriated by the tedious repetition of the coming out story!
I agree I’m halfway through and I want to dnf it. The way they make queerness their entire personality is infuriating. As someone who’s bisexual I don’t relate to this book.
I agree 100%. I ended up dropping because everyone felt like caricatures rather than real people. I even thought to myself this read like fanfiction, in terms of maturity and just...the lack of anything real. It all felt very tumblr 2014.Which is a shame because the premise sounded like a very nice, enjoyable read.
I'm a couple of chapters in and this was my exactly impression after the first few pages. it's giving "boohoo I'm straight :(" vibes lol. I have to keep reading because I'm reviewing it.
THANK YOU for articulating the ick of this book for me!
My God, THIS. ALL of this. At some point I started looking to see if there was a single page in which someone didn’t mention their sexuality, and I couldn’t find a single one. Be bi! Be pan! Be gay! Be queer! Be whoever you are, but have SOME other aspect of your personality in addition to who you’re attracted to!
I am 31% in and I can totally see what you mean. I don’t know anything about the characters yet and that sucks, because I love to witness character growth, and it’s hard to vision that without knowing them. Also, the banter annoys me, but maybe that’s because English isn’t my first language. So maybe things get lost to me because of it. For now, I’m really, really, really disappointed in this book.
I didn't even make it 10 pages in and this is exactly how I felt. I feel like I shouldn't be able to even voice my opinion on this book because 1) I'm not queer and 2) I didn't complete the read..but it got to be so unbearable. There was hardly any setup for the story I was walking into, so the internal monolgue (or narration? Idk...) was so confusing to me. The word 'queer' was used SO much instead of simply describing a character's attributes that I honestly didn't want to go any further. The concept of the MC visiting her future college scene and being introduced to a new chapter in life sounded great, but the execution for me was terrible.
I’m sorry you felt this way, I can’t relate at all. Not every coming out story is the same, and this one was highly relatable to me as someone who came out later in life. Every thought she had is a very common occurrence for people who are questioning their sexuality after placing their identity in how other people see them for so long. Breaking out of the mold is hard, especially as a people pleaser to those you love, and people like Gretchen exist, and make it even harder to accept this part about yourself. There are “queer signs� growing up that go virtually unrecognized until it’s too apparent to ignore, things like only surrounding yourself with queer people or enjoying queer media. It goes to show that stereotypes exist for a reason, and yes, people can have personalities outside of being queer, but that being queer IS an identity, and when it’s a later in life discovery, is absolutely ground breaking when you thought you were one thing this whole time, and then turn out to be another. Please have an open mind when hearing a coming out story that’s different from yours, because as someone who went through it, this was extremely relatable to me. And I’m sorry you feel this way about this story. I’m not sure it could’ve told my story for me any better than this.
i think you didn’t understand the point of the book. i deeply related to imogens feeling of thinking she cant be queer because she “doesnt seem gay� aesthetically�.ive often thought similar things, and by the end she realizes that that’s not what queerness is about. she comes to see that queerness has nothing to do with aesthetics
stop ur so real for this
this is exactly how i felt about it! i think maybe middle to early high schoolers who are still figuring themselves out would really appreciate this book but it just kind of weirded me out...
