Two Books

I realized I was (gasp) behind on my reading goal this year since I'm once again reading a long book for the Read Harder Challenge, so I immediately checked out some romance and young adult from the library and started zooming my way through them. It didn't even occur to me until after the fact that Five Feet Apart is about kids with cystic fibrosis and therefore qualifies for a book where a main character has a disability. Anyway, here are some quick thoughts,

Before You Say I Do by Clare Lyons I is a lesbian romance about a "professional bridesmaid" who falls in love with the bride. So basically The Wedding Planner, but gay. One problem is that "professional bridesmaid with fake backstory" makes no sense as a premise. (Like, just be a personal wedding assistant without the lying and stuff?) The other problem is that I bought the characters' physical chemistry way more than their intellectual chemistry. But weddings and hot lesbians? It was super easy to let that go and enjoy the story! I bought Lyons' first novel, which qualifies for the RHC as the debut novel by a queer author and am reading that right now.

Five Feet Apart by Rachael Lippencott was turned into a movie and compared a lot with The Fault in Our Stars, a book that I absolutely love.  Plus, it won the Goodreads Choice award for young adult last year. I didn't quite buy the romance here either because I really hated Will at first, and didn't  understand why Stella decided she liked him. Once it got past that, their romance was sweet and Stella's emotional arc was satisfying. And it helped me understand CF a bit better, which I will now go learn some more about.

(I should note that her deciding that Will, who is, let's be clear, kind of a dickhead, was worth giving up her entire life for was enraging in the extreme, but in keeping with the stupidity of teenagers