My first book by this author.

Okay – young adult book (or is it New Adult now? They moved things around when they added New Adult). So, I restart. A woman of 20 and a woman of, I believe, 18, are the ‘main’ people of importance in this book (though there’s only one point of view until the 86% mark when the point of view switches for about three seconds). Both are in college. One is a junior, one is a freshman.

The junior is named Paige Galner. The freshman is named Lennox [last name is given but I forget what it is now]. Paige is the star of the show, so to speak, the numero uno point of view. She has a popular lesbian blog, writes for the student newspaper, is a student at college, and begins the book moping over a breakup with a woman named Hanna. She’s friends with a college band, the one and only lesbian rock group on campus – the um . . American Posers I think they are called. That kind of sounds vaguely wrong ‘friends with a college band’. I meant that she is friends with members of the band.

Keira is her current roommate, and apparently, the person who has always been her roommate at school. There’s a lot of late night interaction, not that kind, in their room, but I do not really have a firm handle on what makes up Keira. At a certain point we learn that the band has been together for at least 2 years and ten days, as of a particular conversation. Keira, I think, um . . . well, she’s in the band. She’s not the drummer and she’s not the keyboardist, nor the lead singer, so I assume she’s the guitarist. Marissa is the lead singer, & lead guitarist, and spent a freshman semester humping Paige (and is an Art History student). But Marissa was too wild and adventurous, and Paige was not, so they split up. Callie rounds out the current band members as the book opens. She’s the keyboardist and Marissa’s girlfriend (long term I believe).

As mentioned, the book opens with Paige moping (broke up with Hanna six months ago). If I recall correctly, it’s Marissa who begs and drags her out for ‘an hour or two’. I am uncertain because Marissa and Keira kind of play similar roles in Paige’s life, though they have distinctive, separate, personalities and Paige only humped Marissa. I got distracted. Somehow I meant this paragraph to lead from ‘Paige gets dragged out for an hour or two’ to ‘because the band will be meeting a potential new drummer’.

While at this hangout/bar? Paige and Justin (who I hadn’t mentioned yet since he isn’t a member of the band but something of a groupie; is best friends with Paige since when both were like ten years old; and is something of an honorary lesbian – at least I think they said that at some point) are tossing words at each other. Somewhat weird words, but I’ll get to that later. While bantering, Paige spots someone entering the hangout. She literally sits there with her mouth hanging open, to the point Justin has to push her jaw up. A woman named Lennox enters. Lennox and Justin introduce themselves to each other, but before Paige and Lennox can be introduced, the band members stumble into the bar (they had been delayed by traffic). Some comment or another, ‘oh, so you meet my best buds Justin and Paige’, causes Lennox to give Paige the cold shoulder and shortly thereafter leave. Mostly based on how Paige, the famous lesbian blogger, had relatively recently, posted a rather hateful bigoted blog post about bisexuals. Turns out Lennox is one.

Everyone’s kind of flustered, Lennox leaves first, the group kind of attack Paige for her bigoted ways and so she leaves and . . . well stuff happens. Lennox and Paige then proceed to circle each other throughout the rest of the book. With Justin’s role/reason for being in a lesbian book/etc. becoming realized when he ‘goes after’ the hot bisexual Lennox. You know, so the reader can really partake of the idea that she’s a bisexual and stuff. Okay, I’m wording that quite badly, but mmph.

Right, so, somewhere up there (points) I said something about odd word choices. Everyone, and it does seem to be everyone, seems to have odd word choices and speak as if they are attempting to impress and or appear hip. So, either an attempt to appear smarter, or an attempt to appear cooler. Depending. One (Lennox), I think, is moving in and out of mocking the other, Paige, instead of naturally and normally talking like that, though it is unclear. The others I’m not so sure about. Paige and the Lesbian Union (or whatever they called themselves) naturally talk weirdly, I know. Not sure about the others. That kind of talking/word choice either grew on me, or lessoned as the book progressed. I say that because it either stopped jarring me out of the story, and or causing me to blink rapidly in confusion, and just flowed past me, except for a few dips into that weirdness here and there.

I don’t know, maybe it’s just me. At 2% mark: ‘Excuse me but I’m markedly organized’. Markedly organized? Markedly? Let me make sure I recall what that word means ‘having a visible mark’ (no, not that one); ‘clearly noticeable, evident’ (ah this one). Shrugs, so, it’s me. Yeah, it’s probably just me. I do not know anything specifically wrong with ‘Okay. I will refrain from discussing our sexual trysts.’ Just sounds awkward/robotic to me. 21% - ‘That was insulant. I'm sorry. Am I pardoned?’

Right, moving on . . . (first I’ll note that the dad, Paige’s dad, is worse).

Okay then. I liked the book/story-line/characters/bit of music, etc. This is one of those books that I fear to read. Because the main characters are so many decades younger than me. It’s been so many years since I was in college, or, shesh, 18. I could have a kid who is 18. Heck, I could have a kid who is, hmm, 26. Stretching things. Technically. So, yeah, a book that takes place in college with people . . . well, one’s still in her teens. Basically what I’m rambling about in this paragraph is that 1) this is a book that I would not normally necessarily read because of the age of the participants; 2) and I liked it.

Why did I read it? Because one of the major characters was supposed to be (and was) bisexual. And there’s turmoil in the lesbian world about this, or the nature of bisexuals, in a ‘oh my god, they’ll not really real, they’re just using people, they’re just not picking a side; they need to pick a side!’ way.

I’d be curious to see this couple later in their life. Like in prime ‘chick-lit’ years (26-33), and later. If they happened to make it that far. It’s possible I’ll read the other books by Rivera, at some point, though they are more ‘really young lesbians’ stories. Without the bisexual hook that made this one interesting to check out.

ETA:
Two things I was going to note but forgot to do so:
1) There's a poem between the book cover and the table of contents. I didn't initially know it was there because the book opened on chapter 1 (as Kindle books do now-a-days; vague recollection they used to open on the cover). If I hadn't gone back to look at the cover for some reason, I'd have overlooked the poem. I liked the poem.

2) re: word choices - I probably should have stressed, if I hadn't, that these word choices showed up in the conversation, in the dialogue, as in it's the characters words. There are roughly three reasons why the word choices work, but are still initially 'jarring' to me: 1) college students play with words somewhat naturally; 2) most of the people playing with the words are in one way or another 'artistic', one writes a blog and for a newspaper, the others are musicians; 3) generational gap between me and the characters may play a part in what words are popular or not. ( )