I Wish You Wouldn't By Alex Ritany
I Wish You wouldn'tx lyrics
Deserves all the stars what a lovely story Alex Ritany book of my heart cannot WAIT to share it with you Alex Ritany ritanyverse book published on my birthday ritanyverse for me connor is everything baby teen me needed to see in someone else and reading i wish you wouldn t has finally soothed the lingering sting of going through complete emotional turmoil and remaking of myself into someone i want to be not just who i was set on a course to be alex you did it again Alex Ritany First this book is technically stunning the writing is so rich and textured that you can taste the dry heat of the Canadian prarie in July That s not even the best part about it though It s a love letter to self discovery to the courage it takes to face yourself without looking away It manages to be effortlessly funny and immediately endearing while also taking a baseball bat to your emotional core The characters are startlingly real and beautifully rendered I want to be friends with all of them I sort of want to crack them open like eggs and study exactly what makes them tick Also Not ashamed to say it Aman is hot and living vicariously through Connor who gets to kiss him on the face was great 10 10 This book changed my life I can t wait for many summers with it Alex Ritany They feel like family than my actual family does sometimes I just don t know how to tell them This book and this author changed my life in equal measure The first time I read this book before it was even a book I could hold in my hands I didn t know what real friendships could look like I was a lonely kid didn t have many friends reading until 3 in the morning crying and laughing because all of a sudden I was filled with not just a soul deep affection for these characters but also pure unadulterated Hope Hope that I could find my people Hope for the future Hope that I could be everything I wanted to be Each ache yearning longing that Connor felt echoed in my bones Now fast forward four years getting to read this as a novel in my hands is an experience I will carry with me for the rest of my life Never have I ever pun intended you ll understand once you read the book read a book that felt so much like finding a home a family Connor and his friends all feel like the kind of people I wish I d befriended in high school funny loyal compassionate hot willing to do just about anything for each other And Alex has the innate ability to suck you in in such a way that it feels like you re going on the fun journey of self discovery with them I genuinely don t think it will ever not feel like I m reading it for the first time and I can t wait to see what the cover looks like 30 years down the road with a cracked spine and softened sun worn pages from the amount of times I m going to return to it To anyone who is thinking of reading I hope you see yourself in these pages like I did I hope you find the Connor to your Nat The Nat to your Warren The Payton to your Connor The Connor to your Aman I hope you find the friends that feel like family Because as this book will remind you over and over again sometimes that s all you need Alex Ritany
I thought I hated Aman Khalil as much as it was possible to hate a person but that was before he broke my best friend s heart And then mine but I don t want to get into that just yet Connor hates everything about his best friend Natalie s boyfriend from his dumb basketball shorts to his penchant for giving life advice nobody asked for Aman Khalil s good looks and over the top nice guy act might be fooling Nat but Connor sees right through it and Aman is wasting the limited time Connor has with his friends before they go their separate ways for university All year Connor s been planning the summer road trip to end all road trips the last hurrah for the best friends he s ever had and it s going to be foolproof Meticulously planned itinerary through western Canada s luxurious landscapes Check Perfect moments with each of his friends so goodbye won t hurt so much Check Distance from his overbearing mom Check Aman invited without Connor s permission Check But when Nat and Aman break up two days into the six week trip Connor s house of cards comes crashing down With Aman constantly underfoot and the foundations of their friend group slowly cracking Connor is forced to confront the growing feelings he can t squash properly face what happened six months ago and start answering the real questions What is he really running from What is Aman trying to tell him And is there room in his life for the person he might be at the end of the road I Wish You Wouldn tI was lucky enough to read an early version of this a long while ago and I truly have thought of it since Heartwarming and relatable story for young queer people I read it in one sitting Made me feel like a teen again somehow in the best way I simply can t wait to read the final copy Alex Ritany This book man.
I Wish You wouldn'tpee This book has been so so important from the very beginning It s sweet heartache in book format It s love it s patience it s a tight grounding hug It s a voice whispering in your ear that everything is going to be okay that you deserve to like being you that there s nothing wrong with you okay maybe there are some things wrong with you CONNOR but they don t have anything to do with being gay Connor is a little shit who s going through every stage of grief and then some as he finally faces himself and his sexuality coming to terms with it and what that means going forward He s every kid who s ever been made to feel ashamed simply for being who they are ashamed enough that they ll repress it for as long as they physically can and probably some while after He s every kid who s ever been made to feel afraid of showing their loved ones their true self because they know they might lose everything that makes life feel normal over it Family Community Friends sometimes although that s something Connor fortunately doesn t have to deal with It s horrifying that for so many queer people queer kids this imposed choice between honesty and safety is far from fiction but that makes it a story all the worth telling Let Alex take you by the hand on a road trip through Canada and through yourself and maybe at some point they ll hit a spot that makes you feel like you ve just been punched in the gut and leaves you curled into yourself hunched over and weeping about fake little gay people at 2 30 AM And then you keep reading anyway but also holy shit dude what the fuck My feelings et caetera Do yourself a favour and go on Connor s journey with him It s so so worth it That being said Alex I know where you sleep Watch your back Also how dare you Also die Also kiss me Alex Ritany Alex is a Canadian artist musician and YA author of DEAD GIRLS DON T SAY SORRY from Knopf BFYR and I WISH YOU WOULDN T When they re not at the keyboard you can find them hosting tabletop game night working on illustrations or at their other keyboard composing music Alex s love of art music and the western Canadian landscape regularly spills into their writing which tends to feature complex friendships twisty romances and explorations of queerness They live in Calgary with their roommate cat and dice collection.
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