I received this book for free from Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Kai knows who he is to others: The good grandson, the reliable best friend, the romantic backup. But he doesn’t quite know who he is to himself.

Kai wants to come out at school, but his best friend there, Matt, stays closeted for fear of getting kicked out by his conservative parents—and wants Kai to do the same. Kai unhappily agrees, but when a rumor goes around that Kai and Matt are dating, Matt starts acting differently anyway.

Kai’s other best friend, Vass, is proudly nonbinary and thinks Matt is a negative influence—though maybe that’s just their crush on Kai talking. Kai has always turned to writing to express his emotions, but when his on-page emotions erupt into the real world, he might just be putting the delicate balance of his life at risk.

Short and Sweet Review

Kai knows who he is in his personal life, but this year he’s thinking about coming out at school. He has his best friends Matt and Vass who are always there for him, the only difference is Matt isn’t ready to come out and Vass isn’t afraid of showing who they are. When a rumor starts at school that Kai and Matt are dating Matt starts acting differently towards Kai. Vass thinks Matt is a negative influence on Kai and now Kai has a lot of outside voices trying to tell him what to do but ultimately its Kai’s life and he has to figure out what path he wants to take.

This is the first book by Dean Atta that I’ve read and I enjoyed it. Kai is our mai character and he has a relatively simple life he has a single mom, he likes spending time with his grandma and cousins, and he’s a decent student. This school year he wants to come out but doesn’t know how and unfortunately he was kind of thrown under the bus and had to come out. Over the course of the book we see Kai go through regular struggles not only related to coming out. We see him go on dates but we also see his relationship with his best friend Matt. Matt is also gay but fears coming out because of his conservative parents. Kai knows about Matt but no one else does and during the book Matt has a way of making Kai feel bad and I didn’t like that. I was find if he wasn’t ready but the way he treated Kai differently after Kai came out made you wonder if he really was a good friend. We also have Kai’s other friend Vass who is nonbinary and probably one of the best support systems Kai has when it comes to friends. The majority of this book focuses on Kai’s life at home and school and following his journey after coming out. I liked Kai’s character but I don’t think we got everything that he had to offer, but I did like being in his inner thoughts. The relationship between Kai and Matt was an interesting one because at some points I didn’t want Kai to like Matt because of the way he was acting but we can see the book was pointing to Matt as the one Kai truly wanted.

Overall, this was an enjoyable book to read, it’s relatively short and easy to get through. I liked following Kai on his journey, but I will say some of the things that happen in this book are frustrating but the good outweighs the bad.