Bookish Brews Snapshot
If This Gets Out by Sophie Gonzales and Cale Dietrich
In the midst of their first international tour, boy band members Zach and Ruben find their friendship evolving from best friends into something more.
💗 Heart Warming 👁️ Multiple POV 🌼 Self Discovery 📘 Standalone
Book Review
Sweet, romantic, exciting, frustrating, beautiful, and loving
If This Gets Out is way cuter than I anticipated. I really enjoyed this book a lot! I loved the internal dialogue between the two main characters, and I loved how each of the boys had such different personalities. I found myself more than one time smiling at myself while reading because I felt like I was a teen falling in love at the same time. Well done!
If This Gets Out follows an incredibly famous boy band, Saturday, and it’s members. It mostly centers around Ruben, who is gay, but forced to be silenced by the record label, and Zach, who believes himself to be straight, but ultimately just hasn’t explored his sexuality yet. It starts out with these two best friends switching between their perspectives as they steal glances at each other. After they venture onto their international tour, tensions rise and everything changes when they share a stolen kiss.
I love how this was written. This book is co-authored by Sophie Gonzales and Cale Dietrich, which makes a lot of sense considering how many characters there are. I loved that they ended up dividing the two main characters, so each author wrote one of the main characters. It really allowed them to delve into the characters internal thoughts better and really picture what they would have been feeling. I think it really made for a more organic understanding of each character!
I loved getting to know Ruben and Zach’s relationship. Not only did it give me that reading satisfaction of a secret romance. It was delightful to see them grow from friends to boyfriends and the struggles that comes with. There was a lot of character development there. It was nice to see a romance book come with struggles toward the end, but there was never an absolute break up because of the struggles and reconciliation all wrapped up quickly at the end (which I am never quite convinced works). They spoke to each other of their problems and through that they were able to grow. Not just in their relationship, but as people. It was really sweet to read!
Another really sweet thing about this book was the relationships of the characters with their parents. They both have such different relationships with their parents, but I loved seeing the evolution of their relationships. Regardless of where they started, Zach and Ruben are able to grow together and encourage each other to make healthy life and relationship choices surrounding their parents. I don’t want to give away what happens with these relationships, but I really enjoyed the growth that happened and that bit of family focus.
If This Gets Out is a sweet boy band romance. It will make you smile just as much as you would hope. The growth of all of the relationships are so comforting to read, this is truly a great fluffy comfort read. We all need those sometimes!
