Thank you to Wednesday Books for sending me a copy of If This Gets Out for an honest review.
📖 Summary 📖
From the publisher:
Eighteen-year-olds Ruben Montez and Zach Knight are two members of the boy band “Saturday,” one of the biggest acts in America. Along with their bandmates, Angel Phan and Jon Braxton, the four are teen heartthrobs in front of the cameras and best friends backstage.
But privately, the pressure to stay in the closet has Ruben confiding in Zach.
On a whirlwind tour through Europe with an unrelenting schedule and minimal supervision, the two come to rely on each other more and more, and their already close friendship evolves into a romance. But when they decide they’re ready to tell their fans and live freely, Zach and Ruben realize they will never truly have the support they need.
How can they hold tight to each other when their whole world is coming apart?
🤯 Exploding Head 🤯
That was … intense. I had a lot of feels, so this is a long one, y’all. If This Gets Out is co-written by Sophie Gonzales (who wrote Ruben’s chapters) and Cale Dietrich (who wrote Zach’s). I don’t know much about Dietrich, but I know Gonzales works in mental health, which is evident in this book’s writing. That is not a criticism. The book’s synopsis doesn’t even begin to describe the depths into which If This Gets Out dives.
If This Gets Out is essentially a rebuke of the entire entertainment industry, especially concerning how it treats, er, commodifies children at a micro and macro level. One detail that stood out so beautifully to me is when Zach is looking at a photo of himself taken early in Saturday’s career. It’s a happy memory, but he muses that he’d had a minor breakout that day, and the team photoshopped his acne away.
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While this particular tale is fiction, the authors did do much research. Just anecdotally, I know enough from my peripheral engagement with The Industry that none of the characters’ experiences are a stretch. The ease with which these children procure drugs and alcohol, and their management “team” ignores it is real, is pervasive and leads to tragedy.
The way people within the industry know who’s queer, but the general public doesn’t … it’s all sickening. I mean, this book even touches on the very real desexualization of Asian men!
Sometimes, it’s easy to look at celebrities and think about how charmed their lives must be. It’s easy not to believe they have much right to complain about the bad things that happen to them. I’m glad If This Gets Out shows the darker side of that luxury while also managing to keep a balance of oh yeah, there are things we are grateful for.
No matter how blessed you might be, it’s never going to feel good — or be OK — for your mom to send you YouTube videos criticizing you with an “FYI.” Money buys security, not happiness. So, even if we can’t relate to the specifics, these stars’ troubles are like ours in some ways.
😍 Heart Eyes 😍
Because we drop in on #Zuben three years into their friendship, it feels lived-in, comfortable, believable. I will never not love the trope of a queer person who doesn’t know they’re queer endlessly waxing poetic about people of the same gender. It’s so relatable.
The way Zach lovingly and tenderly describes how attractive various men are and misreads his jealousy and motivations is both endearing and second-hand-embarrassment-inducing. His internal monologues as he figures out his sexuality are golden.
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If This Gets Out is also about learning to set healthy boundaries and communicate your needs. No one’s issues are magically fixed by the end of the novel, but everyone’s on the path to recovery. l love that it doesn’t wrap every plot thread up neatly in a bow.
Not in a way that screams, “Sequel!” but in a way that feels true to the pace of life. Not everything gets fixed when we want it to. There are choices and solutions between all and nothing; life is not black and white: it’s a whole frigging rainbow.
🤔 Thinking Face 🤔
As always, a few things kept niggling as I read. On the whole, I think If This Gets Out handles sex well. At one point, Zach makes it clear he feels sex with “just” hands is still sex. Rather than vilify sex or sexuality, the authors celebrate it. I mean, the book even brings up PREP!
I do think; however, there are a couple of ways the book undercuts that fantastic work. One, there’s one incident in the book that implies virginity = penetration, which, yuck. Speaking of anal sex, our leading duo decides to have it at one point. It’s the only time they ever bring up STIs or condom use worries.
Don’t get me wrong, that’s probably realistic, but you can still get STIs from non-penetrative sex, and also, 20 percent of Americans have STIs … this is perhaps a society, not a book thing, but it felt worth mentioning. ALSO, if, as a society, we could maybe move away from saying things like, “I’m gonna jump out of the window,” when we mean we’re embarrassed? I think that’d be a good thing.
🧑⚖️ Verdict 🧑⚖️
If This Gets Out is out December 07. Pick up a copy at your local indie book store or library.
This review was originally published on 12/4/21.
https://www.geekgirlauthority.com/21-queer-books-summer-and-fall/
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