Adam Sass

Micah Summers sketches boys he meets as fairy-tale characters and posts romantic fantasies about them on IG. Will the fantasy become a reality with boy No. 100?

The first half was quite fun as we follow Micah and friends in their quest to track down boy No. 100 after an encounter on a train, but when Micah tried to create a similar fairy-tale for his new best friend, Elliot, he started to get on my nerves. Would it have made any difference to the story if Micah had been a girl? Probably not.… (mais)

2.75 stars. While this had its cute and sweet moments, this was overall disappointing.

*Potential Spoilers*

Micah is a queer teen who is terribly shy. He has had 99 opportunities to talk to boys he was interested in but choked every time. He turned his failures into artwork and posted them to an anonymous instagram account. He made a decision that boy 100 would be the boy he finally had the courage to ask out and that it would end in a fairytale come true.
Micah meets boy 100 on the train, but they got separated by a crowd before they could even exchange names. Boy 100 left behind his jacket, which was hand-made by boy 100 himself. Micah and his friends then go on a quest to find boy 100. And when they do, it is utterly sweet and adorable.

That's where everything kind goes downhill. The characters were all annoying in some way. The romance was not romancey. Let me break it down by the three main characters.

Micah: queer, artist, shy, and famous because of his dad, which is why the art instagram was anonymous to begin with. He has a problem with saying what he wants and feels, and ultimately gets manipulated into staying in a relationship where he was basically being used for his fame.

Grant (boy 100): Seemed cool and sweet to begin with, but had some serious, unresolved trust and confidence issues from previous relationships. I think he genuinely cared for Micah, but not only clung to him due to his issues, but also began using Micah's fame to further his career as an artist.

Elliot: Was a new friend of Micah's best friend, Hannah, who eventually became great friends with Micah. He is also queer and in a dying relationship. What I hated about Elliot was that he continuously shamed Micah for his wealth (which Micah had nothing to do with) and disguised it as a joke. It was not funny to me at all.

Grant became increasingly self-involved and continued to gaslight Micah to keep in trapped. Meanwhile, Micah begins to see Elliot as his true boy 100. But why you would fall for someone who constantly made fun of you being well-off is beyond me. This wasn't cute, and it took away from the romance for me. Micah deserved better than Grant or Elliot and was too clueless or scared to see it.… (mais)

CW: homophobia, transphobia, described suicide (later determined to be murder), self-harm, conversion therapy which involves extreme violence, sexual content.

Well that was quite intense and at times upsetting.

It saddens me that some people's love for their children isn't unconditional. However they may try to explain away their attempts to 'fix' their kids as 'acts of love', they will always only ever send one message to their children - you aren't what I wanted or expected and there is something wrong with you. It hurts. Like physically hurts me to think of my children ever thinking they aren't good enough. I love them. That's all.

This book is a raw exploration of how this lack of acceptance can have devastating outcomes. I think the blurb pretty much covers what you need to know about this book. I don't think it's the most well written novel I have ever read and I didn't feel totally drawn to the characters, but the story itself is quite gripping and very important. I had some issues with the narration of the audiobook so I personally suggest reading it instead.

Aroha nui ki a koutou katoa… (mais)

I got to read the ARC ebook, and this is my honest review.

I completely fell in love with how Conner phrases things, very kid-like and off-the-wall word choices, shifting emotions and weird humor. For me, that was the best part of the book, and the reason it works well. I also very much enjoyed his character arc, and Marcos's.

It is a thriller, as the author points out, so some bad things go down. The timeline's a little frantic. The Author's Note contains content warnings, and it is reasonable. If you enjoy thrillers, queer victory despite everything, and a complicated ending, this is your book right here.… (mais)