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There’s one thing Jay Collier knows for sure—he’s a statistical anomaly as the only out gay kid in his small rural Washington town. While all his friends can’t stop talking about heterosexual hookups and relationships, Jay can only dream of his own firsts, compiling a romance to-do list of all the things he hopes to one day experience—his Gay Agenda.

Then, against all odds, Jay’s family moves to Seattle and he starts his senior year at a new high school with a thriving LGTBQIA+ community. For the first time ever, Jay feels like he’s found where he truly belongs, where he can flirt with Very Sexy Boys and search for love. But as Jay begins crossing items off his list, he’ll soon be torn between his heart and his hormones, his old friends and his new ones…because after all, life and love don’t always go according to plan.

From debut novelist Jason June comes a moving and hilarious sex-positive story about the complexities of first loves, first hookups, and first heartbreaks—and how to stay true to yourself while embracing what you never saw coming.

Reading the cover copy gives a bit of insight to what the author intended. What he really did was a bit different. I truly wanted to like this a lot. A coming-of-age story that, no matter our sexual orientation, would be relatable in some form or another. As teenagers, we all have made some cringe-worthy decisions based on our id. But this took it a too far in a shirt amount of time.

The main character, Jay. Even after finishing the book, I still have no idea why so many people bent over backwards to keep him in their lives. He made bad decision after bad decision with no real consideration other than for himself. Rarely did he ever do anything for anybody else. There was never a moment that wasn’t centered around his Agenda or his universe. There was no gesture that made me think that he would be a good person to befriend.

While this book is full of stereotypes, with Jay, along with his crush, the smart Asian who happens to also love robotics. On one hand I get some of the stereotypes Jay possesses. Jay goes from being completely isolated from the queer community to being thrust into it. He acted from what he grew up knowing—stereotypes.

There are several elements that combat a few stereotypes which were welcome.

But none excuse Jay’s actions which, most of the time, gave me huge second-hand embarrassment.  He is shallow and catty. And completely obsessed with sex. Hormones, I get it. But I was also confused who this book was geared toward. It’s marketed as YA geared toward high school kids. Now, I’m sure there are much worse things that can be heard in school. There was nothing lewd in this book. And while the sex was not smut-level explicit, it was fairly more explicit than I would expect a fourteen-year-old to be reading. And more frequent than I would have thought.

The cover suggests this is a cutesy, Hallmark-esque, YA, queer romance. As for this having any comedic value? Not particularly.

In all honesty, this made it onto my TBR by way of BookTube. 

I’m not sorry I read it. The writing style was easy and enjoyable. With the book blurb and cover, I was expecting something different and was met with disappointment. There wasn’t a single character I cared about. Especially Jay. That being said, I would not turn down the opportunity to read something else by Jason June. Just nothing revolving around Jay and his cast of characters.