Only Mostly Devastated

by Sophie Gonzales

[dragononabook]

Look, it was kind of inevitable that I was going to love this book. Ollie and Will had a summer fling but lost contact, until Ollie moves and ends up at Will's school. It sounds like a fun but cheesy concept, the perfect fluffy read, right? It’s a massively cute rom-com, it’s a retelling of Grease – a QUEER retelling – and the characters were all so great. Basically, so much to love about it.

The biggest plus had to do with two specific characters actually: Ollie and Juliette. Why those two, you may ask? Because of all the instruments for Sophie Gonzales to pick for them to play, she had to pick the two specific ones that I play. Ollie is a bass player, and Juliette is a clarinet player, and I love them so much. I’m going to be honest, I mainly latched onto them because of the instrument part, but I grew to love them both for reasons not relating to that. Still, it’s like Sophie Gonzales stared straight into my soul and wrote this book based on my greatest bookish desires. Ollie is so relatable, he’s a massive dork and so awkward, but he’s also so kind. He’s there for his aunt and his cousins and I loved him more every chapter. Juliette is awesome and kind and I want her as a friend right now so we can hang out and talk about clarinet pieces.

Of course, these two aren’t the only characters in the entire story. The friends that Ollie makes at his new school, Niamh and Lara as well as Juliette, are a super cool group of friends (and I kind of envy their closeness). I was especially happy with Niamh, who is a model but not conventionally thin like most of them. It was really nice to read about a character who followed her dreams even though she didn’t look like the stereotypical example of a model. Lara was a fairly unique character, with awesome fashion sense and a mildly abrasive personality, but she grew during the progression of the story, and everything about her character made sense. Ollie did have friends back home, and while they didn’t feature much, almost the exact same kind of distancing happened when I moved so that was another thing to add to the list of why this book is practically half my personality. And a quick shout-out to the band that Ollie joins, I had so many feelings of nostalgia for my own band reading about them!

It’s impossible to talk about a rom-com without talking about the love interest and the main relationship. Will is a basketball player and he’s not out yet, so having his summer fling turn up at his school is quite a shock. This is a hard situation to be in, and I fully empathise. Ollie’s heartbroken and Will is in an awkward position, and there’s definitely tension and disagreements and everything that you can imagine from a situation like this but Ollie and Will communicated their feelings, and while it wasn’t perfect because that’s what situations like these are like, they’re teenagers and reading about a relationship that I actually believe is working was really enjoyable! It was also such a sweet romance, and I absolutely loved the way the book ended. No spoilers, you have to go read the cuteness yourself!

On a more serious note, there are definitely some more serious themes in this book, namely serious illness of a family member. Ollie’s aunt has cancer, and there are definitely moments where it’s hard to read, but they’re written in a really sensitive way. How Ollie feels and how he is impacted by something so major isn’t downplayed for the sake of the fluff, and he isn’t magically free of how he feels just because he’s got a love interest. I really appreciated the balance that Gonzales managed to achieve here, and I think it makes this story that much richer.

The one issue I can think of that I have with Only Mostly Devastated is the flashbacks to summer. They were great, definitely! But I couldn’t help feeling that I wanted to see more of that, to see more of Ollie and Will’s relationship developing. It wasn’t a major nitpick, and I certainly didn’t feel like it impacted my enjoyment of the book massively, but it would have been a cool thing to have.

If you’re looking for a really adorable YA contemporary rom-com, and you liked Grease, this is definitely a book for you to keep your eye out from. It’s witty and fun and everything you could possibly want from the genre. If it’s any testament to how much I liked this book, I read it less than a month ago and I’m already planning my reread!