Lee Wind

I feel like the blurb did not accurately describe this book. It implies some sort of heist or adventure where Nico and Sam free other queer teens from a religious institute.
The actual book is slower, more dramatic. The protagonists do not meet until halfway.
Nico escaped, but has no money and no papers. He sneaks aboard a cruise and lies his way through a life on the run.
Sam is well-off, but his parents are absent, possibly cheating, and leaving him alone with his insecurities and James Bond obsession.

Both struggle with guilt and inadequacy and wish they were someone else. False identities and wishful thinking made for an interesting blend of spy tropes and the age old lesson that being yourself is good enough. The part in the middle where both hide who they are was a great queer take on secret identities.

My main struggle in this book would be the romance. It went from attraction to lasting love too quickly for my liking.
I liked the friendships and internal struggles a lot better? The people both characters meet and the things they learn from them, especially Warren, felt deeper and more meaningful than the love story.… (more)

I read this as a NetGalley ARC. I hope they fixed the formatting in the published version. In this version, I couldn't read any of the images Wyatt was generating (the blog, and text messages). I'm not considering that part of the review, just telling you I'm missing content I had to guess at.

I enjoyed this story quite a lot. Wyatt's caught in a neat snare between inner and outer conflicts, and when his best friend inadvertently makes it worse, his attempt to use her misstep anyway just creates more of both. The hatred he encounters is scary, his solutions have consequences, the crush is stressful on top of everything else -- I really admired how not-simple it started and how it just kept multiplying on him. I disliked the kid antagonist (of course), but I resent that Wyatt's best friend falls for him. That, and the filmed scene at the end, threw me out of the story enough to deduct a whole star for.

However: do I think Abe Lincoln was not straight? I don't care either way, though I'm sympathetic if he was. That can't have been easy. I appreciated the author's showing repeatedly that equating a gay Lincoln with bad is bigoted, hateful, and wrong. That's worth the fifth star.… (more)