I came to this book after reading Levithan's Two Boys Kissing, a book I credit with changing my life for the better, and I just couldn't really connect to the characters. The writing was great but not his best work.

My Thoughts:
Usually I love books with LGBTQ+ themes. The genre is one of my favorite things to read. I had heard a lot of hype surrounding Boy Meets Boy, so I decided to give it a chance. It was my first David Levithan book. Unfortunately, I did not like it at all. I ended up DNF'ing the ebook at about 15%. I also tried the audiobook, and made it one third of the way through before DNF'ING it.

There were so many reasons why I didn't like this book. First and foremost, all of the teenage drama was incredibly annoying. The main character drove me crazy with his insecurities. The one third of the book that I did read was mostly him gossiping about his friends to his other friends, and playing the "Does he like me, does he not like me, I'm not going to ask him, I'm just going to freak out about it" game. It got old real quick.

The last thing that really bugged me was that the book just wasn't realistic. It was almost like David Levithan had never been to a high school before. Maybe it's because I'm from the Midwest, but we definitely did not have cliques of drag queens walking around together when I was in high school. You were lucky if you knew one drag queen in school, but most of our schools didn't have them. We also didn't have a lot of openly LGBTQ+ kids that people treated respectfully, or everyone was nice too. Most of them were bullied and ridiculed instead of praised. Maybe that's changed in the almost ten years since I've graduated, but from having friends that have kids in school, I know it hasn't. I wish high schools were more open to the LGBTQ+ community, but around where I live they're not. Maybe that's different in other parts of the country. All of that kept taking me out of the story, and ruining my immersion. Seeing the main character face adversity, and not let it get to him would have helped with that.

I did not like Boy Meets Boy at all. I typically love LGBTQ+ books, but this one just wasn't for me. I will try reading more of David Levithan's books in the future because I do own most of them. It might be a little while before I try another one though. I'm a little intimidated because I didn't like this one, and it was my first book of his. I hope it's just a fluke, and that I love his other books.

I give Boy Meets Boy: 1/5.

I liked this book. I didn't love it. It has all the classic elements I like, a love triangle, some swoon worthy romance, accepting parents and people who grow as characters as the book goes on but I just didn't find it totally believable and I think that's where I had the problem with it. I have read some amazing books which feature LGBTQ* issues and characters recently I just don't think that the community that these characters live in actually exists. If this is a fairytale or something set in that ideal world then it doesn't say so in the blurb and I think that['s why I was slightly confused by it and it came off differently from what I was expecting.

The characters themselves were all likable and I enjoyed taking the journey with them. I though that Infinite Darlene was a great character, I would love to meet her in real life and I thought that her storyline was slightly more interesting than main character Paul. I liked Paul and I loved his relationship with his parents and his friends but I just found him a little uninteresting and with a little too much privilege.

It wasn't that this book offended me in anyway, I just think I was expecting a little bit more from it. It has the classic romance that I loved in the Dash and Lilly books and the outlandish characters found in Will Grayson Will Grayson, but something just wasn't quite right for me and I didn't buy into everything that went on within its pages.