Book Review :: If This Gets Out by Sophie Gonzales and Cale Dietrich

If This Gets Out by Sophie Gonzales, Cale Dietrich
ISBN: 1250805805
Published by Wednesday Books
on 2021-12-07
Genres: LGBTQ+, Young Adult
Pages: 416
Source: Hachette Publishing NZ
Find at Hachette NZ
Buy on Mighty Ape
Goodreads

Eighteen-year-olds Ruben Montez and Zach Knight are two members of the boy-band Saturday, one of the biggest acts in America. Along with their bandmates, Angel Phan and Jon Braxton, the four are teen heartbreakers in front of the cameras and best friends backstage. But privately, cracks are starting to form: their once-easy rapport is straining under the pressures of fame, and Ruben confides in Zach that he’s feeling smothered by management’s pressure to stay in the closet.

On a whirlwind tour through Europe, with both an unrelenting schedule and minimal supervision, Ruben and Zach come to rely on each other more and more, and their already close friendship evolves into a romance. But when they decide they’re ready to tell their fans and live freely, Zach and Ruben start to truly realize that they will never have the support of their management.

How can they hold tight to each other when the whole world seems to want to come between them?

Last updated on 13 February 2023

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My thoughts on If This Gets Out

It’s difficult not to make comparisons to certain 4-piece boybands, but other than that resemblance, that’s where the similarities end. If This Gets Out was an edgy but super sweet story of Zach and Ruben as they navigate their relationship in the public spotlight.

As the members of Saturday go on their first European turn, the boy band are even more in the spotlight than usual. So when Zach realises that he might see Ruben as more than just a bandmate and best friend, things start getting a bit tricky for the group as a whole.

When the pair tell their bandmates, Angel and Jon are happy for them, stoked even, and while management is fine with the relationship on the surface, it doesn’t take long before Ruben and Zach are questioning whether they can both tell their fans, or if management is just holding off long enough to keep them from disrupting their plans for the band.

“The freedom to be ourselves, and express whatever truest version of ourselves we know of to the world as we see fit, is the most important freedom we have.”

With crazy family members, band members who party a little too hard, and strained relationships, If This Gets Out is more than just a teen romance story. It’s about the pressures of being famous, it’s about the struggles of family and running family businesses, it’s the struggles of being a teen in the spotlight, and trying to be who you are and not what people expect you to be.

If This Gets Out is written in alternating perspectives through first-person, Zach being written by Cale Dietrich and Ruben by Sophie Gonzales. Over on Goodreads, there’s a comment from the authors about this fact and I so appreciate it! So often when authors co-write books like this I’m always wondering ‘who wrote which character?’ Sometimes you can tell, most of the time I can’t. This is often the case with books like What If It’s Us and Here’s to Us by Adam Silvera and Becky Albertalli. I still don’t know who writes who in those books.

In case it wasn’t obvious, I really enjoyed If This Gets Out. I don’t think I’ve read a book about a boyband before, so that was a joyous experience, and the mix of tense band-management-family dynamics was so beautifully interwoven with the sweet and squee moments of young love.

If you enjoy books by Sophie Gonzales, Adam Silvera, Becky Albertalli, Rainbow Rowell … any Young Adult authors who write romance, then give If This Gets Out a go!

Have you already read If This Gets Out? What did you think?

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Thank you to Hachette Publishing NZ who gave me a free copy of this book in exchange for a review. This does not affect my review, and all thoughts and opinions are my own.