{"id":737,"date":"2022-02-02T14:07:51","date_gmt":"2022-02-02T14:07:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/siderpress.oceansideschools.org\/?p=737"},"modified":"2022-02-02T14:07:51","modified_gmt":"2022-02-02T14:07:51","slug":"book-review-heres-to-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/siderpress.oceansideschools.org\/index.php\/2022\/02\/02\/book-review-heres-to-us\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: Here’s To Us"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

There\u2019s no better feeling than when you find out that the sequel to your favorite movie or book is coming out. In early December, I found out my favorite book, What If It\u2019s Us, <\/em>by Becky Albertelli and Adam Silvera was finally getting its well-deserved sequel at the end of the year, Here\u2019s To Us. <\/em>If you\u2019ve seen the movie or read the book Simon vs the Homosapiens Agenda, <\/em>(or Love, Simon <\/em>in case you saw the movie) or read the New York Times Bestseller They Both Die at the End<\/em>, you will love these books! <\/em>In case you haven\u2019t read Book 1 or 2, I suggest skipping this review as it will contain spoilers for both! I had been anticipating this book since I had finished the first one in 8th grade, and I couldn\u2019t wait to see what was in store for my favorite characters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In case you are not up-to-date and familiar with the first book What If It\u2019s Us, <\/em>the LGBTQ+ story centers around the two boys who have a meet-cute at a post office in New York City with a flashmob, which have them believing in the universe and all things meant-to-be. The two try to find each other, since they didn\u2019t have the guts to ask each other for their numbers, and finally, Arthur (one of the boys) finds the other, Ben. They then go on a number of \u201cfirst-dates\u201d after the others go hay-wire. The only problem is Arthur lives in Georgia and has to go back at the end of the summer, so Ben and Arthur try their best to make their summer romance perfect, amidst Ben in summer school with his cheating ex-boyfriend, and Arthur at his internship at his mother\u2019s law office. Over the course of 3 weeks, they find out that perfection is overrated and learn to enjoy themselves. In the end, Arthur ends up going back to Georgia, but not after the most epic breakup in history (I\u2019m talking a romantic treasure hunt and picnic, all of it!). Ben and Arthur agree that it would be best for the two of them to cut things off and give themselves a chance to date other people, which leads us into the next book!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sequel surrounds Arthur and Ben two years after their epic summer in New York, and while everything in the streets and the city is the same, everything with Ben and Arthur feels different than what it was before. Arthur is finally back in NYC after taking an internship for an off-broadway director, and  Arthur has an amazingly sweet boyfriend, Mikey, (who we met in the epilogue of the first book) who cares for him and loves him more than Arthur would have dreamed possible. However, being back in New York City after two years leaves him with more questions about Ben than answers about Mikey. Because Mikey just dropped the L-word, and Arthur isn\u2019t sure about how he feels about Mikey. On one hand, Mikey is amazing and understands Arthurs \u201cno-chill\u201d personality. But on the other hand, there\u2019s so much to be said with Ben and their 4-month talking hiatus. Ben had finally begun to move on from Arthur with a boy from his creative writing course, Mario. Mario is his caring, sweet not-boyfriend who is finally helping Ben connect with his Puerto Rican roots and teach him Spanish. Ben is already confused enough with Mario and what is going on with him, and Ben does not <\/em>need Arthur coming back into the picture to confuse him even more. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Within the first part of the book, it\u2019s painfully apparent that Arthur doesn\u2019t feel the same way about Mikey. Part of me felt devastated for Mikey because although Mikey almost seems like an old man at heart, I could immediately tell that Mikey had fallen hard for Arthur and that wasn\u2019t reciprocated for him. Arthur\u2019s back and forth banter with himself had become extremely painful for me to read through, given that it just felt forced every single time he was with Mikey. Every time he was with Mikey, Arthur had to convince himself to be in the moment and appreciate Mikey, instead of actually facing the fact that Arthur was still in love with Ben. With our other half I could tell that Ben was super into Mario, and if Arthur had not come into the picture, I could totally see Ben with Mario. They had great chemistry, but it was apparent that Mario wanted different things than Ben. While they had great chemistry, I could tell they wouldn\u2019t work out even if Arthur wasn\u2019t there. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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For those familiar with these characters, it feels as if Mario is behaving in a way that was similar to Ben in the first book. The reader could tell Ben was super into Arthur, but Ben\u2019s behavior didn\u2019t show it. Ben is frequently late, which leaves Arthur feeling like he should try less. In this sequel, Mario is the one late, and Ben has begun to start being early more frequently. This allows for Ben\u2019s character to develop and reminds us that people do not always stay the same. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overall, this short series left a mark on my heart, making it one of my favorite books of all time. If you enjoy a good romance read, pick it up!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s no better feeling than when you find out that the sequel to your favorite movie or book is coming out. In early December, I found out my favorite book, What If It\u2019s Us, by Becky Albertelli and Adam Silvera was finally getting its well-deserved sequel at the end of the year, Here\u2019s To Us. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":738,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/siderpress.oceansideschools.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/unnamed-6.png?fit=339%2C512&ssl=1","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcv2KD-bT","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/siderpress.oceansideschools.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/siderpress.oceansideschools.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/siderpress.oceansideschools.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siderpress.oceansideschools.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siderpress.oceansideschools.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=737"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/siderpress.oceansideschools.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":747,"href":"https:\/\/siderpress.oceansideschools.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737\/revisions\/747"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siderpress.oceansideschools.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/siderpress.oceansideschools.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siderpress.oceansideschools.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siderpress.oceansideschools.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}