Review: AUTOBOYOGRAPHY by Christina Lauren

FACTS ABOUT THE BOOK

Title: Autoboyography
Author: Christina Lauren
Publisher: Usborne Publishing
Price: 9,79€ (Amazon)

Pages: 416
Genre: LGBTQIA*, Mormon 
Year: 2017

BACK OF THE BOOK / WHAT'S IT ABOUT?

Fangirl meets Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda in this funny and poignant coming-of-age novel from New York Times bestselling author Christina Lauren about two boys who fall in love in a writing class—one from a progressive family and the other from a conservative religious community.

Three years ago, Tanner Scott’s family relocated from California to Utah, a move that nudged the bisexual teen temporarily back into the closet. Now, with one semester of high school to go, and no obstacles between him and out-of-state college freedom, Tanner plans to coast through his remaining classes and clear out of Utah.

But when his best friend Autumn dares him to take Provo High’s prestigious Seminar—where honor roll students diligently toil to draft a book in a semester—Tanner can’t resist going against his better judgment and having a go, if only to prove to Autumn how silly the whole thing is. Writing a book in four months sounds simple. Four months is an eternity.

It turns out, Tanner is only partly right: four months is a long time. After all, it takes only one second for him to notice Sebastian Brother, the Mormon prodigy who sold his own Seminar novel the year before and who now mentors the class. And it takes less than a month for Tanner to fall completely in love with him.

MY THOUGHTS ON IT

I LOVED this book.

I still haven't managed to put my adoration for CALL ME BY YOUR NAME, the best book I read this year, into words, but I can say that AUTOBOYOGRAPHY reminded me so much of CMBYN and I loved every bit of it.

I'd never expected this book to be even more beautiful on the inside than it already is on the outside with its stunning cover. ♥

This book started with my favourite quote by Lin Manuel Miranda:

And I basically loved everything that came afterwards.

I could immediately relate and connect to the protagonist Tanner and loved that he identified as bisexual because bisexuality is still so underrepresented in the media and mostly when a character is attracted to more than one gender, labeling is just completely put aside.  

There's nothing that I love more in a book than when I can literally feel the tension, the chemistry, the sparkles between two characters. Because then I ship them and I love nothing more than shipping characters and getting excited about them. For me, the fact that two characters have noticeable chemistry with each other is where a romance stands or falls. That's what everything depends on. Because what's more boring than reading about two people falling for each other when you can't feel that at all yourself, when you can't feel any connection between these people and when you're not the least interested in them?

Luckily, there was A LOT of everything that I just mentioned I love between Tanner and Sebastian. Sparks flew out of the pages and hit me right in the heart and I was super hyped about it.

I loved how supportive Tanner's parents were of him - I could so identify with his mother who went all the way and wore rainbow aprons and pyjamas and generally was quite obsessed with everything rainbow. I also found it very interesting to read about parents for whom gayness isn't the issue at all but who are super supportive of that but who don't want their son to get hurt and so want to protect him from the Mormons. 

Before this book, I had only a very vague idea of Mormons. I knew that Cece (my favourite booktuber ProblemsOfABooknerd on Youtube) could relate a lot to the book because she herself grew up in Utah where the book is set and was also surrounded by Mormons. So I knew that the book was very realistic in that aspect. I found it very interesting to learn so much about Mormons and felt quite educated by the book. 

As I said before, this book reminded me of CMBYN. But not only because I have a similar amount of love for it and enjoyed reading it so much but mostly because Sebastian reminded me of Oliver and Tanner reminded me of Elio. They both seemed to be the more "likable" versions of Oliver and Elio which I liked but which does not mean that I liked them more than Oliver and Elio. The thing that I adore so so much about CMBYN is the fact that Elio isn't a completely likable character but shows a lot of sides of him that provoke the reader and that the reader might disapprove of. But that's what made him so incredibly real and relatable for me.
So AUTOBOYOGRAPHY felt a lot like the toned down version of the characters of CMBYN. They were completely likable and didn't really provoke the reader in any way.

So because I loved this book so much, reading it felt so sacred to me that I could not be disturbed while doing that. And since I read outside (which is my favourite place to read and where I read the fastest) I got often disturbed by the neighbours. So when a particularly emotional scene was about to begin, I just had to shield myself from the outside world and put in my earphones and listened to the CALL ME BY YOUR NAME soundtrack while reading on. And OH MY GOD. Wow.

Listening to that soundtrack while reading this book felt like the absolute epitome of gay goals.

The music fitted the story so beautifully and made the whole book even more emotional and deeper and I just loved every bit of it. I mostly prefer books to their movie adaptions because there is just so  much more depth in books normally. But movies have music which is this essential tool that books don't have. And by listening to the CMBYN soundtrack while reading AUTOBOYOGRAPHY I gave the book the tool of music and wow, it just blew my mind.

I normally don't listen to music while reading - only sometimes to the Harry Potter soundtrack while reading Harry Potter - but this was an otherworldly experience that I will cherish forever.

CONCLUSION

I loved this book so much and I am so happy I read it because it fulfilled me and touched me in a way that only my favourite book of this year, CALL ME BY YOUR NAME, has managed to do so far. After I finished CMBYN I so wanted to read another book like it and was frustrated because it felt like a once-in-a-lifetime book experience. But then I read AUTOBOYOGRAPHY and it came so close to that experience and I am so thankful for that. It was such a wonderful, beautiful, emotional and heartwarming and heartbreaking read and this book has a very dear place in my heart now and I am so happy I discovered it. If you know any books similar to this or CALL ME BY YOUR NAME, please tell me! 

RATING

I proudly and happily award this book 5 out of 5 stars.