Thank you NetGalley for the audio ARC

This book completely blew me away. It hits some heavier topics (CW for internalised homophobia, toxic masculinity, bullying, past parental abuse, anger issues due to anxiety and panic attacks that present as angry outbursts), but it's also so so sweet and cathartic.

I think it's so important to have books that represent anxiety, especially the less talked about symptoms of anxiety, and this book does a great job of showing how anxiety can give you terrible mood swings and anger issues. The first time I read Take a Hint Cloe Brown by Talia Hibbert I was struck by the lines "People think anxiety makes you nervous all the time, and it can. But no one ever talks about how it makes you angry." That was the first time I ever saw ANYONE talk about how anxiety can make you angry, and I felt so seen by it. And I hope this book has the same effect for teenagers who might read it.

There's a lot of aspects of this book I really enjoyed. Wes's relationship with his mother and his mother's boyfriend/fiancé was probably one of my favourite things, and I cried (like big sob fests, not just prickly eyes) THREE times because of it - once for Wes's heart-to-heart with his mother, once when Wes told Tad he loved him, and also for the epilogue where his mother and Tad get married. I also really liked the plotlines around Wes's friends (both the friends he starts the book with and the friends he makes along the way), and of course the relationship with Tristan - though for me the romance wasn't the main focus of the story, and I can see some people being disappointed with that.

I also loved each chapter title being a play on a song name, and the cheeky little "I was a skater boy, he did ballet" line near the end of the book.

The audiobook narrator also did a great job - he has a bit of a melancholic tone to his reading that really suits the story.