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If I Told You So (2012)

by Timothy Woodward(Favorite Author)

4.21 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

0758274882 (ISBN13: 9780758274885)

languge

English

genre

Romance

publisher

Kensington

review 1: Sweet. Gentle. Uplifting. A beach read. I'm not a beach person, so I'm not quite sure what a "beach read" is, but if it what I think it is--a quick, light, enjoyable, uplifting book--then this certainly qualifies. It is a beach read for gay teens. In If I Told You So, sixteen year old Sean Jackson navigates the sometimes treacherous waters of coming out. And he does so in an idyllic setting, a quaint New Hampshire lake village. There is very little angst here--everything pretty much goes smoothly for Sean, and when it doesn't, he's not too devastated and also has a wealth of support from his mother, his new best friend Becky, his former girlfriend Lisa, his Lesbian boss, and his friend Matt from his high school. And that, therein, lies the problem for me. I recommend the b... moreook for those who don't like conflict, but for me, there simply was not enough conflict in the book. The author obviously had a purpose: to show that coming out in today's world doesn't always mean experiencing earth-shattering, monumental life-change. And I commend him on that. I simply wish that Sean could have gone through a bit more upheaval, just to prove to me that he learned more from his coming out.
review 2: Hovering between 3.5 and 4 - there are some solid moments in here, and it mostly surprised me in good ways. Sean, when he came out to various characters, was always accepted. It flip-flopped between being about this "learning about gaydom" storyline and the romance between Jay and Sean, although I found myself liking the non-romance portions more as the story concluded. It follows a pretty standard YA summer romance path, with Jay being a first love that doesn't treat Sean well as the storyline progresses and Sean is led on to believe that it's more serious than Jay wants it to be. The best moments are with Becky and Lucy, Sean's best friend and girlfriend (eventually former-girlfriend) that show the fun, friendship side of things. Like other books from the publisher, I feel that the writing style was overinflated with words at some points, but the story moved fast and didn't feel too bogged down - although the romance and some of the emotional threads were underdeveloped as a result, which was disappointing. Also - I know some teens come into their sexuality late like this (you hear about a lot of teens knowing before 16), but Sean's ignorance regarding common gay stereotypes, ect felt to be a bit much. Why is it always in the LGBTQ contemporaries that authors make the protagonist feel particularly ignorant about some things? It eventually got better, but it annoyed me initially in the beginning. IF I TOLD YOU SO isn't going to please everyone, but I really enjoyed the quick ride of a read it provided, giving a different and less-angsty spin on the summer romance that a lot of LGBTQ teen readers would do well to read about. less

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