This Is Kind of an Epic Love Story

by Kacen Callender

[jeannamichel]

I liked it, but I really wanted to love it and that didn't happen. The diversity is amazing in this. Plus, I've never before read a book about where a character needs to use ASL (American Sign Language). It was interesting so see how he utilized technology in this case - as well as how the protagonist learns some ASL for him. It was a really cute story. Except... most of the characters were a bit flat. We didn't get a lot of detail from anyone and I found myself really not caring about anyone in the story except the protagonist. The couple of the story are to believed to be best friends from their childhood and while that's great to have learned that, we never see the two fall in love- they just see each other again and are in love again. There's minimal development, which was disappointing. And Nate, the protagonist, learns nothing from his past mistakes- as every time he flips off his friends, other people have to tell him to apologize, he never is able to come up with what to do on his own. There seemed to be more to his character that met the eye and I wish Callender had explored all the characters a bit more. Overall, I liked it some things and didn't like others.