Charming as a Verb

4.5 round to 5 for LIVING UP to it's title and cover! Clearly now I need to go back and put Ben Philippe's first book higher up on myTBR list. The audio was great, felt so right for the story and character. The only false step was that his major climatic decision didn't feel 100% in character for Henri, but the rest was such a delight that that feels small. Strong and nuanced primary and secondary characters, great dialogue and overall tone with some genuine laugh lines, and every bit (with the one exception) of the plot and setting felt super realistic and earned. Will definitely be recommending and could see this on the BOB list.

this was a super cute YA contemporary but i went in expecting this was a romance and it didn't have an HEA. i did actually really love the characters and i was going through what they were going through just a couple years ago so it was super relatable. i loved that this was from the perspective as a black man because for the most part this had very little trauma which is not a common thing you see from black YA books let alone those from the perspective of a man. i would highly recommend this for the age group it's for 

I love Ben Philippe's writing–he's successfully pulled off the POV voice of a character who's defined by being super charming (as a verb). Henri also feels authentically teenage as he grapples with his Haitian-American upbringing and the privileged world he's adjacent to–when he makes mistakes I clawed my face and said noooooo aloud but you get where he's coming from. In a word...charming.