Love is our legacy.
★★★★★
This review contains spoilers.
This book was so near perfection I have to gush about it. Empirically, a story that takes place during the AIDS epidemic and is about it is already predisposed to get me emotional, but that doesn't change the fact that I cried three times while reading this. I think this is the first time in 5 years that I've cried while reading and I cried three times. So beautiful. The writing is so eloquent and yet so age appropriate. Every topic explored is thoughtful and thought-provoking.
The characters in this book were certainly flawed, but it only endeared them to me. Art made some decisions, said some things, and felt some feelings that made me uncomfortable at times, but he's 17 and coming from a hard home life. If anything, his temper and passion made him a believable teenager throughout. Plus, his development over time is made clear in the epilogue. The same goes for Reza. I was silently screaming at him to break up with Judy so much, but his fear and inhibitions were palpable. Judy was the most stable character, and I found myself relating so much to her. She had moments of insecurity, but overall she was just an icon and I loved her for it. In addition to loving the fact that we got each of their first-person narrations throughout, their friendship(s) were everything to me. The cross-section between their innocent young friendship paralleled against Stephen watching his lifelong friends die over and over again... I cannot overstate the emotional power of this story.
By the end of the book, I was floored by how satisfied I was with the plot. I thought it was brilliant that we got a good chunk of time experiencing Art and Reza being together, but that they go their separate ways and don't end up together in the end. So many YA romances leave you with the feeling that you're supposed to believe these teenagers in love stay together forever, but this handled their breakup so beautifully and made the whole story more plausible for me. I also love how it did set you up to have expectations about the continuation of their friendship (before the epilogue) by introducing Annabel as the new third member of the friend group. Sure, some of the plot points were messy in ways I didn't like to read about (i.e. Saadi and Judy "hooking up"), but it is for those reasons that plot came across so authentic and transparent to me. I felt like I was actually seeing into these teenagers' lives.
I am truly blown away by this book; my CAWPILE was 10-10-10-10-10-10-9. The 9 for Overall Enjoyment is only not a 10 because of 2 minor complaints. Firstly, I wish we had gotten more of Reza and Art's connection in the beginning of the novel. They kind of have a love-at-first-sight situation, and it's not made better by the fact that they avoid each other after Reza starts dating Judy. If they hung out at any point before Reza and Judy broke up, it would have made more sense to be that they immediately jump into a serious relationship because their chemistry is just so strong. I understand instant physical attraction, but I didn't buy that they would both betray Judy like that unless they had built up a deeper emotional connection in those months.
My second small issue is that the notecards spread throughout the story was such a cute and genius idea and there was just not enough of it. There were over a hundred cards, so I feel like there should have been a notecard break every three chapters (since every chapter rotated to a different perspective of our main three characters). I loved hearing Stephen's "voice"; it made me mourn him that much more in the end. I especially loved that the Love one was in there before we were even introduced to what the cards were. My complaint is just that I wish there had been more than 4 in the entire novel. Both of these complaints I've mentioned had very little impact on my love of this book, however, and I also understand both were probably limited by page count limits.
Final verdict: This is a stunning YA novel that moved me to tears.
