I don't Kiss & Tell, but I do when the book slaps

Now I’m not going to lie, the Darius the Great books by Adib Khorram are some of my favourites of all time, so I was excited to finally get a new book from Khorram. That’s all there was to that point. My only other point I have for this is that this is one of the final two books I had for that era of loads coming out in March and April.

My copy of the book doesn’t have its blurb on the back of the book – there’s just praise on the back. The blurb is on the inside of the first page, like where it would be on a hardback, despite my copy being paperback. This isn’t a complaint, it’s just an odd choice for a paperback.

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Still, the blurb says that Hunter never expected to be in a boy band, let alone the kind whose exploits get splashed across tabloid covers. But how his band, Kiss & Tell, is on its first major North American tour, and life in the limelight is harder – and more complicated – than he ever could have imagined. Okay slay we’ve got that, he’s in the spotlight, so that’s going to be conflict, obviously. It then goes on to say that he can handle dressing up in whatever The Label wants and pretending to never have sex. But he likes finding community in the queer kids that come to the meet and greets, but then details of his personal life spill, and that risks ruining stuff for him.

The blurb does actually say more, and it actually mentions that he plays the perfect gay boy for the camera – which I did appreciate, letting the gay member be openly gay. But then the blurb finishes up by saying that details about Hunter’s personal life leak out online, and that risks ruin for everything, and this perfect image of him that’s been created as well as his new relationship. Then as a separate little point, in terms of the group, we’ve got Hunter Drake, our main character, Ashton Nightingale, Ethan Ngyuen, Ian Souza and Owen Jogia.

But we start the book with an announcement that tells us that Kiss & Tell’s tour is sold out and that Hunter promised that fifty front-row tickets will be given to LGBTQ youth, which is cute. And then like a page later, there’s this gossip bulletin saying how Hunter has broken up with his boyfriend, who is the twin brother of one of his bandmates, Ashton. And then the last bit before the first chapter is the setlist, and this band has a song called Poutine. But you know what? Slay. Why not? If you’re Canadian, lean into it.

Then in chapter one, Hunter mentions his swampass – slay. But after the meet and greet, the drummer of Kiss & Tell’s opener, Kaivan, comes up to him and basically tells him he appreciates what he’s doing and tells Hunter he’s gay, so Hunter is like, “Werk, I’m not the only openly gay person on this tour”. Then when he gets home from the first show of their tour, he’s got writer’s block from being too sad – the context of this is that their label is pressuring them to start work on their next album. And then Hunter and Kaivan end up hanging out in public, because gay, but the tabloids immediately take that to mean they’re dating.

I will say, for a bit of context, that Hunter and Kaivan do actually get together. I’m saying this not as spoilers, because it happens fairly early in the book, and also, the blurb explicitly mentions Hunter's new relationship.

This obviously isn’t the first book I’ve read with characters in the spotlight, and with the spotlight comes the media. I really liked the way that media and the behind-the-scenes stuff was incorporated into this book, because we got bits of the story, then little chunks of media, interviews and emails from behind the scenes. Everything was woven together and pushed the story forward. And I really like that, because obviously they’re a boyband of teenagers, so they’re going to be controlled by their label. There’s this one bit in between chapters that was essentially a Buzzfeed quiz that was basically, “Make poutine and we’ll tell you who your Kiss & Tell soulmate is”, and then Hunter came up, but it gave the most surface level bland description from the image that's been made of him.

So, this next section, I’m going to be as vague as possible to avoid spoilers, since I’m going to be talking about the story. The blurb mentions that Hunter’s label wants to present this image of him never having had sex, and the bits of his personal life that leak out essentially expose that, “Ooh, big scary! The seventeen-year-old has had sex”. And then from this, the book proceeds to do a few things. At one point, a couple of girls mention that what came out from the leak is gross, referring to what Hunter did as gross, despite the girls being fans of Kiss & Tell. And it’s the whole thing of how the world is okay with gay people existing until they do “something gay”. I don’t remember exactly how it was phrased in the book, but it was something along the lines of how gay people in the media are often there for the heterosexual gaze. They can be there, but they can’t be “too gay”. One character also talks about how sex sells, but they bring up the fact that straight sex sells, but gay sex calls for a rebrand.

The book also highlights how disgusting certain parts of the internet are. As a reminder, the members are Kiss & Tell are seventeen, and some of the Tweets that got included, obviously on purpose, were downright explicit and some of the things that were said are things that are said in real life, but should never be aimed towards a minor, let’s phrase it that way. And when talking about the age of the characters, I feel like that something that people will often forget when they’re reading YA while not being in the target audience age range. The characters are often teenagers – literal children – and because of that, they’re going to make mistakes. And why is that? Because their ages means that they simply don’t know any better at that point. Now, I say that because obviously, younger characters are going to make choices that perhaps an older reader would think is stupid, because the older reader knows better. But again, the teenager wouldn’t know better, so these stupid things they do and say make sense for them… I just feel like that’s something that readers of YA often forget. Still, I mention that because the conflict between characters, Hunter and Kaivan especially, is due to their younger ages.

And to keep talking about age for a second, I think that was part of what made Hunter flawed as a person. Now I want to specify, I mean flawed as a person, not as a character. He’s seventeen, and trying to navigate fame, his feelings and adolescence all at once. I feel like that would be a lot for anyone to deal with, so I feel like even in the moments where he’s being a bit of an arse, that just makes him more real. Like, he’s young and all of the problems are hitting him are hitting him, so he doesn’t really see what’s going on around him and doesn’t often notice when other people are having problems like him.

For my final point, I feel like you can tell when a queer story has been written by a queer author. This is one of those books that you definitely can. I feel like there are some jokes that only queer people make that straight people don’t. One such joke being referring to anything that is a minor inconvenience to a queer person as homophobia, and that joke gets used in this book. And you know what? It’s true. My copy of the book has a little water damage from when I was out in the rain. And you know what that is? Homophobia!

But that’s it. I enjoyed this book. I feel like it had a lane it wanted to drive down, and it stayed in it and got to its destination safely. If I had to complain about anything, I think it would be that I would have like it to be a bit longer – which is weird, considering my copy is 378 pages. I say that just because of the inclusion of the behind-the-scenes and news outlets that probably cut into some of the time that could have been with the characters. But saying that, how the book is, that’s nowhere near a big enough issue for me to have any problem with it whatsoever.

Okay, bye!