Kalena W's Reviews > Hello

2.5 stars, this felt a little too soon and some parts were just, a lot for no reason

Thank you Penguin Teen for the arc through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review!

I have to admit, I started reading this book a while before I marked it on Goodreads. I am too lazy to go back and try to find the time, especially because it felt like such a chore to read through. There was so much going on, obviously because it's about covid, but also so much extra drama that felt unnecessary. It didn't leave me with a good taste in my mouth, but that was also probably it was a bit too soon for reading considering we are still going through the pandemic. With that being said, I feel that in the future if someone reads this outside the pandemic, they will find more interest in it. There were a lot of smaller and diverse details that I really enjoyed, but it didn't make up for the bad of it.

The plot followed two high school kids, "falling in love" over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, via text messages and zoom calls. There was some cool rep such as; Max lives in a low-income household and she works for herself and her mom. Jonah lives in a well-off household but he has a generalized anxiety disorder (which seemed pretty accurate from my friend's comments) and his mother has died. His sister Olivia has GI issues and is chronically ill, as well as either bi or lesbian, I don't believe it is ever explicitly stated. Max delivers to an old man who becomes a side character who is also LGBTQ and he was really fun.

Because of the amazing diversity of the characters, I think someone who is reading it outside of COVID will have a better time. I recommend checking the trigger warnings at the bottom of my review because there were absolutely tons. The COVID pandemic hasn't been very hard on me in terms of losing people I know, but there was still so much stress, and as my favorite teacher put it "I'm sure as teenagers you have a lot of unnoticed trauma from this ongoing pandemic that will be discovered." I agree, and reading about this was no happy story. I didn't leave with any feeling of hope or joy, maybe because we are still in the pandemic, or maybe the story. I am not completely sure.

Max was a character that I liked right from the start, I connected and related to her a lot in terms of the family situation and etc. She was really hard working and did her best to support herself and her mom. She took COVID very seriously and understood when she couldn't do something. In terms of some of the stuff that happens in her story, I am completely on her side in the matter. I preferred her over Jonah and I think I will stand by that.

Jonah was a character it took a while for me to love, he was annoying to me in the first part of the book and ended up being in the ending too. He obviously is going through a lot, he has a general anxiety disorder, and living through a pandemic is hard. But he was so ignorant of Max's financial situation, her feelings on some matters, and honestly anything she had going on. He thought she was always able to do things, that she always felt available, and that he was the most important thing in life. He did take steps to try to be a better person in that regard, but it always fell through. (view spoiler)[THEN at the end there was the CHEATING TROPE and he did it? it was so unbelievable (but also not really bc he had complicated behaviors through the whole book) and I think it would have been more impactful had the story not derailed with this as a side plot (hide spoiler)]

Overall, this wasn't the worst and I did have joy at the diversity of the characters. But reading it during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, or rather writing it during that time too, was not the move. Jonah's character was really complicated and I didn't enjoy him to be completely honest. As well, I didn't feel a lot of romantic tension between the two characters and was left with a bad taste in my mouth. I hope someone reading it when the COVID pandemic will be over hopefully soon will find more joy in this story.

[TW: death of a friend, COVID-19 mentions and related deaths, panic and anxiety attacks, death of a family member, low-income problems, AIDs, panic attacks, cheating mentioned]