Eighteen-year-olds Ruben Montez and Zach Knight are two members of the boy-band Saturday, one of the biggest acts in America… But privately, cracks are starting to form.
I was granted eARC and audio ARC access to If This Gets Out by Sophie Gonzales & Cale Dietrich via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for the double approval! My thoughts are my own and my review is honest.
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About the Book
If This Gets Out
by Sophie Gonzales & Cale Dietrich
Print/eBook
Published 7 December 2021
Wednesday Books
Page Count: 416
Audiobook
Published 7 December 2021
MacMillian Young Listeners
Narrator: Ramon de Ocampo
Length: 12 hours and 57 minutes
Genre: YA Contemporary Romance, LBGTQIA+
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Eighteen-year-olds Ruben Montez and Zach Knight are two members of the boy-band Saturday, one of the biggest acts in America. Along with their bandmates, Angel Phan and Jon Braxton, the four are teen heartbreakers in front of the cameras and best friends backstage. But privately, cracks are starting to form: their once-easy rapport is straining under the pressures of fame, and Ruben confides in Zach that he’s feeling smothered by management’s pressure to stay in the closet.
On a whirlwind tour through Europe, with both an unrelenting schedule and minimal supervision, Ruben and Zach come to rely on each other more and more, and their already close friendship evolves into a romance. But when they decide they’re ready to tell their fans and live freely, Zach and Ruben start to truly realize that they will never have the support of their management. How can they hold tight to each other when the whole world seems to want to come between them?
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My Review
My Rating: 3 Stars
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I was granted eARC and audio ARC access to If This Gets Out via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for the double approval! My thoughts are my own and my review is honest.
If This Gets Out is a cute and complicated love story for angsty queer teens and teens-at-heart, especially the ones who love cheesy mainstream boy bands. Young band mates finally express their love for one another in the midst of one discovering his own queer identity (the other was already out) but it seems like no one is going to let this happen easily. Parents, band managers, etc., this just can’t get out.
This was cute, parts were fun, and the ending made me see what everyone who ARC read it before me was squealing about. This absolutely has and deserves its place on the shelves and if queer teen romance is at the top of your list of genres then you absolutely need to read this one. If you’re only marginally interested, though, know that it’s long, it’s slow, and there are not insignificant sections that just didn’t feel relevant to the story. I ended up listening to the audio ARC when I got it, but I see the eBook is well over 400 pages. This story only needed 300.
The narration performance is well done and sounds quite familiar (probably because Audible tells me Ramon de Ocampo also narrates for Casey McQuiston among his 265 titles on the platform.) Normally when I end up knee-deep in a book that isn’t paced as fast as I think it should be, the audiobook saves it. I can’t honestly comment on whether or not it did for me because unfortunately NetGalley’s shelf app was glitching out over the few days that I was trying to listen to this book and I kept having to hit play every 2-8 minutes. I think it’s a safe bet, though, knowing what I do about de Ocampo’s other work that it would have been a more enjoyable experience had the platform behaved itself. Listeners of the final product shouldn’t have that problem and I wish I give better feedback in this regard.
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Want more? Check out my 5 star review of The Darkness Outside Us