BUCKLE IN FOLKS BECAUSE THIS IS GONNA BE REEEEEALLY LONG. Lots and lots of spoilers ahead, obviously. 1/50ish probably https://twitter.com/katiehahnbooks/status/1265090375909285894

I want to preface this by saying that I’m white and there are probably things I missed and I’m not in any way an expert on the Latinx experience, but I’ll do my best to deliver information in a non-harmful, thoughtful way. Please feel free to tell me if I mess up. 2/50ish

I kinda want to break this down into my three biggest issues
1) The white queer lens used when writing from the POV of a QPOC
2) The idea that politics shouldn’t hinder relationships
3) The false representation of extremism as third-party and outside the mainstream 3/50ish

1. This is the part I’m least equipped to respond to but definitely the part that twitter is the most concerned with (rightfully), so take what I say with a grain of salt.

Throughout the book, there is little to no discussion of whiteness, white privilege-- 4/50ish

the white supremacy rampant in the Republican party, etc. The ONLY issues given any real spotlight throughout the book are LGBTQ+ issues and gun violence (more on that later). Dre is not very political, but the few times he does confront Dean about his mother’s stances, (5/50ish)

he focuses entirely on marriage equality and the trans military ban. Obviously these are important issues, but when Dean assures Dre that he doesn’t agree with his mother on marriage equality, Dre is immediately quelled and doesn’t seem interested in knowing-- (6/50ish)

Dean’s opinions on other issues--immigration, police brutality, anything that affects the Latinx community he’s a part of. The fact that the only mention of immigration throughout the entire book is a throwaway line about a speech Dre’s father made in the past, (7/50ish)

when Dre is the son of a Mexican American man running for president, is bizarre to me.

And the fact that Dre is Mexican American feels so tacked on and shallow-it’s really only ever brought up in the context of “Dre’s dad would be the first Mexican American president!” (8/50ish

Again, I know very little about the Mexican American/Latinx experience, but it just… felt like I was reading about a white family, with absolutely no acknowledgement of their culture beyond “It’s Hard To Be A Mexican American Presidential Candidate.” (9/50ish)

So yeah. This is absolutely a book about a Latinx character becoming more lenient on conservatism for a white boy. Have these lovely excerpts: (10/50ish)

"For as open-minded as he claimed to be, he was so eager to pick at the scabs of who I was so he could check off a box determining whether I was friend or foe. He didn't want to know /me/; he wanted to know how to categorize me....I couldn't love my mother and believe in her--

but also find some of Dre's beliefs worthwhile. There was no middle ground with him."
"Dean wasn't who I thought he was, and maybe the problem was that I'd already decided who I thought he was before I'd given him the chance to tell me. So, pretty much, maybe the problem was me."

So there's that bullshit, and there's the fact that it feels like the author thinks queer issues are the only important political issues because it's apparently all Dre and Dean care about. Dean is scared to come out to his mom? Dre instantly forgives every shitty position 13/50

he holds because he's "going through so much." As soon as Dean reveals that he’s queer, Dre forgets everything else because they just “uniquely understand each other” since they’re both sons of pres candidates. This whole book gives its conservative white characters a pass 14/50

CONSTANTLY as long as they aren't anti-gay. It's infuriating.

And outside of queer stuff, Dean never confronts his mother on her fucked up policies, he never even THINKS to CONSIDER whether he still agrees with them. The book ends with us having no indication that Dean 15/50

disagrees with his mother on immigration, health care, etc, or that his views will change. The character arc has nothing to do with his political opinions changing--they don't--and everything to do with his sexuality and coming out. Meanwhile the characters of color 16/50

in Dre’s life (e.g. his parents) are constantly soothing Dre for wanting to befriend a white conservative:

“Do you think it’s possible for people who disagree on basically everything to be friends?”
“You know your father and I don’t agree on everything, right?” 17/50

Dre’s mom then goes on to say that she and her husband disagree on whether higher education should be free or whether free college devalues it. So like, absolutely not the same fucking thing as denying the basic human rights of marginalized people. 18/50

Also, the author implies that it’s just as hard to be a white woman running for president as it is to be a Mexican American man (with an openly gay son). So that is just. Fucking great. The author is really trying to dispute the inherent evil of Dean’s mother’s politics 19/50

by immediately following up a scene where Dre’s friend Mel calls her evil incarnate with a touching scene between Dean and his mom about how she loves and supports him no matter what or whatever the fuck. I KNOW REPU/BLICANS ARE HUMAN BEINGS WITH CHILDREN. WE ALL KNOW THAT. 20/50

PART TWO: I’ve already talked a bit about this, but holy shit it is the whole message of the book. The message of this book is LITERALLY “don’t let political opinions get in the way of having relationships with people.” WHAT YEAR IS IT. WHERE AM I. WHAT IS HAPPENING. 21/50

This book so aggressively sanitizes cons it’s just. Like there are mentions of more extremist beliefs being wrong, like the only lesbian character (who supports the obvious T/rump stand-in, by the way!) who says her parents would send her to a conversion camp 22/50

if they found out she was gay. But again, it’s wholly centered on queerness, we NEVER talk about issues outside of that. Just guns and queers. 23/50ish

(Side note: Can we talk about how Dre says he wants to launch all the guns into the sun, but when he debates Dean on how to prevent school shootings, he says the reason behind them isn’t the guns themselves but the way boys are raised with toxic masculinity? Implying he's 24/50

come around to Dean’s ideas that guns Aren’t So Bad, and Guns Don’t Kill People, People Kill People. And the implication throughout that the way to prevent gun violence is Better Mental Health, which is such a tired line from people who just don’t want their guns taken away 25/50

GUNS DO KILL PEOPLE, AND LOTS OF THEM, VERY QUICKLY, AND IF YOU ONLY HAD A KNIFE YOU’D KILL A LOT FEWER PEOPLE. FUCK. And also we’re once again seeing Dre ~come around~ to Dean’s way of thinking while Dean’s opinions stay exactly the same the entire book, and the only 26/50

thing that changes is his belief that his mother will love him if he comes out/strays from the path she expects of him.)

So let’s talk about that ENDING. Because OH BOY. The next-to-last chapter is the beginning of the final debate between Dre’s dad, AG Rosario, 27/50

and Dean’s mom, Gov Arnault, before the election. The first question is “how do you feel about your sons dating?” and Arnault gives this long bullshit about how she doesn’t like it, but she’s coming around to it, and she loves her son, and it’s partly that she thinks he’s 28/50

so great and no one will ever be good enough for him, blah blah. So we’re supposed to thinkt his character is Growing because she’s coming to terms with her son being queer. Even though we know she still supports the trans military ban (and earlier Dean said to her, like, 29/50

“I think it’s wrong that you support the trans military ban but I still support you, so you should support me too” as if it’s just! Okay! That she believes this!!), and even though there is NO MENTION OF ANY OF HER OTHER POLITICAL BELIEFS BESIDES ARMING TEACHERS. 30/50

NO, SORRY, JUST BECAUSE THIS WOMAN DOESN’T HATE HER QUEER SON DOES NOT MEAN I’M ALL CHILL WITH HER NOW. FUCK OFF.

And then. And then. The very last chapter skips forward in time to after the election. But IT DOES NOT REVEAL WHO WON THE ELECTION. What this says to me is 31/50

the author doesn’t think it fucking matters who won, because they defeated the Real Evil, and There Are Good People On Both Sides, and what really matters is that the main characters are happy together! FUCK THAT SHIT. FUCK THAT. IT DOES MATTER. IT ABSOLUTELY MATTERS. 32/50

PART THREE

Okay, so we’ve all seen the summary, we know there’s an ~evil third party candidate~, but I’ve seen a lot of implication that that candidate is a stand-in for S/anders. But actually, he’s a corrupt billionaire who’s popular because he’s “not a politician” 33/50ish

and because he says wild shit about minorities and “says what he’s thinking” and all that bullshit. He’s fucking T/rump, but with the support from young voters S/anders got, which is… certainly interesting.

What pisses me off so much about this is that it pretends 34/50ish

T/rump and his supporters are some kind of anomaly, and the Rep/ublican mainstream is actually the far more “reasonable” Governor Arnault (who still wants marriage equality reversed and wants to arm teachers with guns??? I don’t get how that’s less extremist but ok). 35/50ish

This is so false. The Rep/ublican mainstream IS T/rump and his supporters. The party has moved so incredibly far right that nearly every R politician capitulates to T/rump--even if they don’t agree with him, and I don’t fucking care if they don’t, actions are what matter. 36/50

The message of the book is apparently that Ds and Rs need to team up to defeat Extremist Outsiders, but Rs ARE the extremist outsiders now. Since Obama got elected they have point blank REFUSED to cooperate with Ds. It makes me sick that this book is trying to tell us 37/50ish

we should try even harder to cooperate with them when THEY are the ones so furious about a Black man becoming president they’ve spent twelve years roadblocking Ds at every turn. And Ds are already constantly simpering and bowing down to what Rs want and sacrificing 38/50

so much to get the smallest pieces of legislation passed, so forgive me if I don’t think we need a book telling TEENS how important it is to cooperate with these people. LIKE JUST WHAT THE FUCK. WHO. IS. THIS. FOR. 39/50

Hi kids! You don’t have to cooperate with, be nice to, or have relationships with people who think you’re less than human. You don’t have to be okay with people who think undocumented immigrants, BIPOC, queer people, and disabled people are less than them. 40/50ish

FUCK this across the aisle, there are good people on both sides bullshit.

SO IN SUMMARY, THIS BOOK
1) sanitizes the R party and aims to convince the reader that there are ~good people on both sides~

2) argues that political opinions don’t need to get in the way of relationships if you don’t want them to
3) utterly fails at telling the point of view of a Latinx character
4) portrays literally everything through the whitest lens possible and focuses exclusively on queer issues

5) falsely portrays the R party as much more centrist and less extreme than it actually is and portrays T/rump and his ilk as outsiders rather than the R mainstream
6) is just so fucking badly written. The first half is borderline unreadable. The dialogue is ridiculously bad.

You can absolutely tell that the author saw RWRB, decided he could do that too but As YA, and then just banged something out as fast as possible to hop on the bandwagon.
7) is BORING. There is no chemistry between the main characters, I have no idea why they like each other,

I didn’t care about them at all, and the character arcs are weak. And also I have already read a version of this book that is literally one million times better.
8) is, I was not exaggerating, a BEAT-FOR-BEAT RIPOFF OF RWRB:

The MCs are locked in a room together during a bomb/shooting threat and Bond. They are antagonistic toward each other at first but slowly become friends. They do public appearances together as an excuse to see each other. They slowly fall in love and start dating.

Photos of them kissing and their text messages are released publicly. They break up because one of them is scared of jeopardizing his family’s reputation. It’s revealed that a political opponent was the one who outed them.

They expose this character for outing them and he drops out of the race. I mean, just, it’s practically a direct copy. I can’t believe this is getting published.

ANYWAY! That's all I have to say! Feel free to reply/DM if you have questions. 48/48