What If It's Us by Becky Albertalli & Adam Silvera

I received an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review and that had no impact on my thoughts of this book. You can get a copy of it from the Book Depository through my affiliate link here.

So let me start by saying that What If It's Us is a beautiful story and if you're wondering whether it is worth a purchase or read then let me assure you that it definitely is. If that's enough for you then go ahead and pre-order it or request it for your library right now but if you need more convincing or are interested to know more about it then keep reading.

The plot: 
Arthur is in New York for the summer working in his mom's law firm. Ben is spending his summer in summer school with his ex-boyfriend. The two meet after Arthur follows Ben into a post office because he's cute and Ben is there to post a box of his ex-boyfriend's things to him. It's a weird time for them to meet and it's interrupted by a flash mob and Ben disappears before Arthur can even get his name. What follows is the most adorable but also realistic romance you'll ever read.

Did any of you ever see the amazingly terrible 2001 rom-com On the Line? If you haven't then trust me you're missing out but if you have then this book has a similar vibe, especially in the beginning. But this book is infinitely better because the characters are flawed and wonderful and it's gay!

I don't want to spoil too much but some of this book made me cry and some of it made me laugh out loud and one of my favourite moments was this absolute killer internal dialogue;

"like some kind of Kinsey scale Sorting Hat, "Better be... GAY!!!!!!"" 

I mean first of all, it's so accurate that Art doesn't know if Ben was actually interested in him or it was a solidarity thing (#thegaystruggleisreal), which was the lead up to this line. Also sorry Becky Albertalli but this idea is blatant plagiarism of the scarf of sexual preference, please watch A Very Potter Musical. (I'm kidding, I love you. Please write us a Leah on the Offbeat sequel).

As strange as it might seem, one of my favourite things about this book was the parents! There are so many YA novels where the parents are a total non-event or they're never around or they're conveniently crappy and the protagonists are free to do their own thing. This book was different and it was amazing. I know people sometimes have absent or awful parents but it was really refreshing to read about these wonderful supportive parents that were an integral part of the story. Ben and Arthur both had awesome parents with distinct personalities and they all meet up for dinner at one point and it was so wholesome and nice and realistic. There are so many parents that would want to meet the parents of their 17 year old's friends or boyfriend and it was cool to have a whole part dedicated to that.

Also Art's mom calling Craigslist the underbelly of the internet and Art's dad figuratively looking into the camera like he's on The Office was comedy gold. Also this interaction she had with her son just before that;

"As your mom, I'm going to go ahead and veto dick pics, too."
"It's not like I'm asking for dick pics!"
"If you put an ad up on Craigslist, you're asking for dick pics."

This is getting quite long so I'll just say one more thing before I devolve into a list of all the things I loved in this book. The ending. I'm not going to ruin it but THE ENDING. There has been a fair bit of speculation about how this would end and whether Becky or Adam won in terms of the ending which made me a little hesitant going in but I loved it. Is it the kind of ending I would have loved as a teenager? Probably not. Is it the kind of ending I wish I had read as a teenager and took onboard for some of the relationships I've had? Absolutely! It's bittersweet but ultimately hopeful and I just loved it.

A list of other things I loved but won't go into in detail:
- the horse paintings
- Ben being a writer
- all of the friendships
- the last day
- the heart stickers!
- the accuracy of the group chats and emojis and language
- the random Yale guy I can't even explain why
- the real discussions about classism and racism

It's possible I'll add to this when I get my hands on a final copy and get to re-read it, which I plan to do often, but for now that's all.