Imogen, Obviously: New for 2023, from the bestselling author of Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda

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between her best friends and her sister, imogen scott knows who she is: the picture perfect queer ally. but her best friend, lili, has told her new queer college friends that they used to date. when imogen puts on the bi label for the act, she finds it fitting more than she ever thought it would. but she’s straight, right?

I don’t have any negative things to say about this book in all honestly, but just as a warning; there were a LOT of Queer pop culture references (which I enjoyed, but I know many people find it cringey and annoying so just putting that out there) and I could see it going one of two ways. Either this could be a snapshot/placeholder of the lgbt community in 2023, OR it could become dated within a couple years. Hard to say. I received an ARC from the publisher (thank you!) and Edelweiss+ in exchange for an honest review. ** There are also a lot of valid things Gretchen brings up, like the concept of straight passing privilege but instead of seriously engaging with any of that, Imogen just starts crying and we're to infer from that that what Gretchen said was awful and terrible. Every single character only ever listens to queer music watches queer shows and reads queer books. Being queer is also the main part of their personality for them, we're literally introduced to the characters as "this is Lili and those are her queer friends" like? Is there anything else that's interesting about them? Hey, are we meeting everyone at Winterfield? I can be ready in five. I just—” She stops short. “Oh my God—Imogen, hi! I’m Tessa. Sorry—I usually wear clothes.”Gosh, my brain is mush. You'll just have to take it from me that I, too, have a fat crush on Tessa now. Their lil romance did something to my lil heart and I'll probably be thinking about this book for the next week. Just look at them. Reprinted by permission of Balzer + Bray, an imprint of HarperCollins Children’s Books, a division of HarperCollins Publishers . All Rights Reserved. Strangely, though, her reaction to that was to make her "haters" a personified, obnoxious, pink haired character with terrible takes on being queer. I hug Puppy the unicorn close to my chest. “So it’s just...I’m bisexual? And we used to date, but we’re friends now. And other than that—”

Imogen’s crush on Tessa is so cute. I loved their texts, their flirty banter, and their interactions. My heart was like “YES!!!!” whenever they interacted and it was so precious and cute and I adored it. so much of imogen's journey resonates in that odd gray area of needing to slot neatly into a box to be fully accepted. a box that others have put you in; the one that’s terrifying to change that because this is who you are. this is the /you/ that you’ve spent your whole life building up to. This rating was hard for me, because I understood how deeply personal this story was for the author. It rang true in every aspect of this group. For those who don't know (and this is very much an abbreviation) the author was criticized and bullied for being a straight woman writing queer books, until the author came out publicly as queer. And a lot of this shows in Imogen's story, with her constant questioning, being sure of her straight identity. Her friend Gretchen in the book seems to be the masses who criticize other queer experiences.I think just about every queer person can sympathize with Imogen and what she’s going through. However, I also sympathized with the overbearing gatekeeper of this story. She’s a teenager and has been dealing with homophobia for a long time. So, although she’s wrong about a lot and goes about things the completely wrong way, I felt like there should’ve been a better ending for her as well. She was staring straight ahead when she said it, didn’t even miss a beat when the light turned green. But she was biting her lip just like she is now, and I almost wonder—

Despite that, this was still a very good story. Discovery and understanding of self can be exciting if done in the right context, with the right people surrounding you. This book was full of support, even if one very un-supportive person seemed to take the spotlight most of the time. Imogen worked through a lot, and I feel like it reflected a lot of my own struggle with who I am, and who I want to be. It was enchanting, and entertaining, and full of love for finding a base in your own life to follow. Which, hey, this is another recent YA read that is actually in the imminently-leaving-for-college and early-days-college stage and can I say? I like this trend of moving outside of the highschool box. Are you kidding?" She springs out of the driver's seat and around the front of her car, closing the distance between us with one last bounce of a step. "Underlined, bold, giant-font yes." Imogen's self discovery felt really personal to me, as someone who didn't realize they were queer until they were older. It felt so painful that she thought she was so late to figure it all out, even at only 18, and that she felt like she was even being harmful not knowing. I was in my mid-twenties when I even started questioning, and I resent the idea that it was somehow my responsibility to know these things about myself when I didn't even have the language to describe myself, as if others have any claim on our identities. The RRP is the suggested or Recommended Retail Price of a product, set by the publisher or manufacturer.The weekend goes better than she could have hoped for and she walks away with something she never expected – a crush on one of Lili’s super cute friends, Tessa. Can one girl really shake up her entire sexuality? Imogen, Obviously is going about to find out the answer to that, even if it leads to a lot of hard questions and harder answers.