It's Not Like It's a Secret

Eine süße Young Adult-Lovestory über Sana, die mit ihrer Familie nach Kalifornien umzieht und sich dort in ihre hübsche Schulkameradin Jamie verliebt. Doch nicht nur weiß eigentlich niemand, dass Sana lesbisch ist, sie hat auch herausgefunden, dass ihr Vater wahrscheinlich eine Affäre hat und ihr neuer Freund Caleb scheint sie plötzlich etwas mehr zu mögen als gedacht - da ist Chaos vorprogrammiert. Der Schreibstil erzählt aus Sanas Sicht und liest sich angenehm einfach und locker. Auch die Story versprüht eine ganz nette Wohlfühl-Atmosphäre und die Liebesgeschichte ist süß und größtenteils entspannt zu verfolgen. Dabei finden aber auch ernste Themen wie Rassismus ihren Platz, da Jamies Familie aus Mexiko und Sanas aus Japan kommt - damit verbundene Komplikationen und Stereotypen werden realistisch behandelt und mit eingebunden und so kommt man an der ein oder anderen Stelle auch mal zum Nachdenken.  Die Charaktere sind dabei ebenfalls ganz nett, wenn auch nichts besonderes. Insgesamt also eine wirklich niedliches Buch, das sich entspannt liest und in dessen Geschichte man sich durchaus wohlfühlt, wenn es einen auch nicht tiefer packt. 

I loved almost everything about this book until Jamie’s date with Kelsey and Sana’s whole thing with Caleb. I know Jamie didn’t do anything on the date, but the whole situation was weird. She shouldn’t have agreed to go with Kelsey alone. ALSO, SHE KISSED HER AND GOT UPSET ABOUT CALEB? SHE DID THE SAME THING?? I hate cheating storylines, especially from the main characters. I really liked Sana’s character. The ordeal with Jamie’s friends knocked a lot of points off and the Caleb thing… I don’t expect all character’s to be perfect, but it just so happens that she did the two things that I hate the most. I like that she acknowledges that she was wrong; I’m just not into cheating.

I was looking forward to a sweet romance but I didn’t find it in this book. Sana isn’t a likeable character and her bad situations turn worse because she keeps on talking shit. The rest of the characters were really flat. Adding to that, here friends were incredibly unsupportive. The worst thing about it was the cheating. I expected a sweet, adorable gay romance, not a lot of drama because the MC is cheating. And her friends even encouraged her to cheat! They expected Jamie to break up with Sana, so they immediately told her to make out with a guy. There’s a lot of slut-shaming involved and every character was racist.

Okay wow I HATED this book so I'm gonna sit down and write an angry review 1) I didn't hate the writing. It was alright. Now that the postive stuff is our of the way: 2) instalove This is personal preference tbh, I just REALLY don't like the trope (yeah ik super surprising seeing as my favourite ship takes about 1000 pages if pining before the first kiss but whatever) Sana sees jamie, thinks she's hot, becomes obsessed with her, looks for excuses to be around her and they're dating about 35% into the book. Great. Moving on. 3) the characters No one in this book has a singular braincell. Sanas friends suck. They talk about nothing except boys (and being Asian ofc) because why have complex characters when you can have walking tropes that only serve to further the plot? (Read: the boycrazy one who makes her crush her entire personality, the rebellious one with the strict mom and the self conscious one) They're kinda racist, kinda homophobic, sooo excited for Sana to dump Jamie and be with a boy she's not even attracted to and their favourite hobby is, guess what, making fun of "slutty white girls" I think this couldve been a good story if Sana realized by the end that she's only friends with them because she's never had Asian friends before and was desperate for a connection but eventually realizes that they're not good people but no. Everyone gets coupled up into adorable pairs and it's all rainbows and sunshine. As for Sana and Jamie. Idk man they're just boring. Jamie has no discernable personality other than "smart" and "likes poetry" (oh and also "hot") and Sana... Idk man, flawed characters can work really well, but Sana is so fucking boring you just wanna facepalm every time she opens her mouth. Don't even get me started on her spending the entire book chastising her dad for cheating and then going and.... You guessed it, cheating on her girlfriend, just because she thought her girlfriend was cheating on her. Because who needs healthy communication in relationships? Also it doesn't really matter anyways cause said girlfriend later takes her back for inexplicable reasons cause idk plot ig. 4) sexuality What mostly annoyed me here was the erasure of bisexuality. When ppl find out Sana likes women, they automatically assume she's a lesbian and bisexuality is only brought up in the context of "oh but what if you were bi? Wouldn't you wanna date a man then? That'd make everything so much better" it's never once mentioned that either Jamie or Sana COULD be bi and still wanna date women. There is quite a bit of open racism in the book, which I'm okay with because it's a central theme and always adequately called out and discussed, but the same can't be said for homophobia. All of sanas friends are really weird about her being gay, want her to break up with Jamie and date a nice boy, while also insisting that they're not homophobic AT ALL. Sana, too, deals with at least some level of internalized homophobia that is never addressed at all. (Direct quote from the book: "and now everyone thinks I'm a slutty, lying, lesbo bitch." Delightful) Anyways I could go into more detail but I'm fucking tired and wanna be done with this book bye.