Imogen, Obviously: New for 2023, from the bestselling author of Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda

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Ultimately, Imogen, Obviously is full of queer joy. I adored the characters, their relationships were all so brilliant. From their friendship groups to their families, you could always feel the care and love these characters held for each other. There were relationships that grew and some that fractured, however all of them developed with great arcs and poignant themes. Her invalidation of Imogen’s sexuality, and literally anyone else who didn’t fit her rigid structure is harmful. And I know that Gretchen is the epitome of every single person – queer or not – out there who says and does these things to queer people to invalidate them and their feelings, but gosh did it make me want to just shake her shoulders and tell her to chill out.

Although not everyone wants to read those stories, there are people out there going through that every day and books about how confusing and weird that can be are relatable to them (and hey, even me, who went through that several years ago could reminisce on some of Imogen's confused feelings and that-wasn't-a-crush-we're-just-friends-right?-ness). I feel like the fact that Imogen was surrounded by so many LGBTQ people in her life and constantly just believed herself to be straight -- and was told by all those people that she was -- but was a proud ally to them and trying her best to learn about their unique issues added something to her journey of self-discovery. Oh! Oh no. Scott—Scotty. Hey.” She hugs me, and I bury my face in the spot where her chest meets her shoulder. “Don’t listen to the pink-haired girl, okay?” There’s a lot in this book to love. I loved the explorations of relationships. I loved how the issues of gatekeeping was brought up and handled. And I loved Imogen. Sweet Imogen who second guesses every little thing and is so, so careful to be as good of a person as she possibly can be. She treats everyone fairly, gives them the benefit of the doubt, even if I, personally, would very much rather hurt them exactly where they’d feel it, perhaps with the skillet the world’s largest pancake was made on (iykyk). I think the fact that the plot of the book -- Imogen and Lili's lie about the fact that the two of them allegedly dated -- is absent from so much of the book is really what adds to making it feel so long. There were a lot of scenes where there was an opportunity for it to be made relevant again and it basically never was? Imogen occasionally overthought about it, but that was about it. Are you kidding?" She springs out of the driver's seat and around the front of her car, closing the distance between us with one last bounce of a step. "Underlined, bold, giant-font yes."

In a social media graphic for the book, the author describes Imogen as having "queer discourse brainworms", which is a good way to put it. She tries to educate herself about queer issues, but just ends up thinking that there’s only one right way to be queer. She doesn’t feel the same way about girls as she does in her crushes on guys, so she concludes that means she doesn’t like girls at all. Even when faced with obvious evidence to the contrary, she convinces herself that she’s just trying to be bisexual for clout and that she’s a bad person for appropriating queerness.

It’s not that.” Lili frowns. “Not exactly? I just feel like such a baby queer sometimes. I’d only been out for three months when I got here.” I think I'm landing on 4-stars with Imogen, Obviously, mostly because I had a very hard time putting it down and read it in pretty much one day, which is impressive since I've been struggling with reading attention lately. However, despite that dreamy cover and a lovely romance plotline, it's not without it's flaws. Every single character only ever listens to queer music watches queer shows and reads queer books. Being queer is also the main part of their personality for them, we're literally introduced to the characters as "this is Lili and those are her queer friends" like? Is there anything else that's interesting about them? I wouldn’t call it a gut punch—more like a tiny, sharp poke beneath my rib cage. Other people’s inside jokes always hit me like that, but I can never quite pin down the feeling. A variation on loneliness, maybe. while not exactly a memoir, imogen, obviously is a fictional bisexual awakening story close to the authors heart, essentially because it is somewhat her own story. some may find this to be too much, but i found it courageous. for the author to find strength to write about a character struggling through what she went through takes a lot. the inner monologue imogen has is heartbreaking, especially as many queer individuals can relate. there’s a lot of discourse on what makes someone queer, which imogen struggled with a lot. she’s used to just being an ally, and she’s proud of that. she doesn’t believe you need to be part of the lgbtq+ to be incredibly supportive, and everything she does is for the good of the community. her own realization takes time, but it’s a whole work in progress.

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It feels bigger than I want it to be. Do I really have to announce this? Can’t I just feel something and live inside it while it’s happening and not analyze it to death? when i was starting to understand my sexuality, i had a queer best friend. i started with the label “not straight.” my best friend was pan. as they told me about their queerness, explained their label to me, i borrowed it for a while, trying it on to see how it fit. i didn’t keep it, but it was nice to have been given to me for just a while.