3
by Hannah MoskowitzSetting: Florida
Published on October 31st 2016
Pages: 261
Taylor Cipriano had everything figured out, back when she lived with her single mother in Miami. Now, she's moved upstate for her junior year to live with her mom's boyfriend and her soon-to-be-stepsister and is trying to figure out who she is out of the shadow of her best friend. When she meets Theo—quirky, cute, sensitive Theo—he seems like a great match...except he has a girlfriend. Josey, icy and oh-so-intimidating.
But Theo and Josey aren't like anyone Taylor's met before; Josey grew up in a polyamorous family, and the two of them have a history of letting a third person in to their relationship. It's nothing Taylor's ever considered before...but she really likes Theo.
Her feelings for Josey, though?
That's where it really gets complicated.
I have a few things that I consider to be true about my reading life.
- YA books generally annoy me.
- I especially don’t like YA contemporary books.
- I hate, hate, hate love triangles.
I hate to have to rethink long held beliefs about myself. I’m going to have to though. I’ve been enjoying some YA contemporary books lately.
I loved this book. I loved it even though this is an actual love triangle. Maybe I don’t hate it because no one is choosing who to love and is just agreeing to love everyone. It isn’t a competition.
Taylor is a junior when she moves to a new town. She meets Theo and Josey. She is warned that they are weird but she likes Theo a lot. When they explain to her that they are polyamorous, she doesn’t know what that means. In their relationship that means that they are open to other partners.
Other people misunderstand the intent behind the relationship. They feel that it is unfair for Theo to have two girls that he is using. They think that it means that Taylor is open to sleeping with any one. Taylor is nervous that her involvement will feed into stereotypes of Latinas being The Other Women.
What I found most interesting about this book is that I believed it. I wasn’t mocking the author’s attempts to make it seem like this was a real relationship that wasn’t exploiting anyone because it felt real. I could see how this relationship could work. It worked better than a lot of two person relationships I’ve read about in books. There were no major misunderstandings that could be resolved just by talking to each other. There was no game playing to make someone else jealous or insecure. It felt age appropriate.
My only complaint about this book was Josey’s obsession with vet school that didn’t make any sense at all. I ranted about that all in this post.
