Format: ebook
Published: June 6th, 2024
Age: Young Adult
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Rating: 3/5 Stars
Maybe I expected just a little too much from this one. It wasn’t bad, it just felt a touch flat in places, and I think Maya could have been a stronger character.
Maya is just trying to get through Sixth Form so she can go to university and study to be a doctor. But she’s contending with bully Candice, fixated on Maya and her best friend. A run-in with school heartthrob Harry Wu ends up with Maya auditioning for the school musical, and even getting a main(ish) part, and as her and Harry grow closer, Maya has to learn to juggle her responsibilities to the musical, her dreams, her parents and her best friend.
I was really excited to read this book, especially with the setting and focus on Freddie Mercury, who Maya learns about because the school musical is We Will Rock You. She starts to see Mercury as a person to look up to, and feels inspired by him. As well as Mercury’s role in the book, I was excited by the use of We Will Rock You and Maya joining the musical, as it was the only musical I ever did in high school and one I have fond memories of (and, of course, my love for Freddie and Queen was the reason I auditioned in the first place).
Problem was, it felt like there was so much crammed in here, so much going on it didn’t really leave the book with much room. I liked the relationship growing between Maya and Harry, and how Maya starts stretching her wings a little. There was some good stuff here around growing up and finding your place, and juggling different responsibilities as an older teenager. But there was the relationship, the musical and Maya’s new ‘friends’ from the musical, issues with her best friend, plus the school bully plotline, as well as Maya’s brother and parents who are quite strict with her. I’m also not sure how much this would land with a YA audience – I think it has its place, but it felt like a lot of the YA element was more based around a Millennial school experience rather than what kids might be dealing with now.
And reading YA over the last couple of years would absolutely give the impression there’s a huge issue with social media pages and apps being used to cyberbully kids – I would love to know if this is actually happening, or something that’s been pulled out of the air a bit, because to a point, going back to the Millennial point, kids in contemporary YA often don’t feel like they’re engaging with social media/the internet in a way current kids do. I think if this book had come out 10 years ago, it would have been really spot on in the way the teens act and the different dynamics happening, the way they engage with social media, etc.
I did enjoy this, but the places where it feel flat were a bit disappointing. This is completely unique to me, too, but the musical didn’t feel as utilized as it could have been, and considering the book’s title is taken from Freddie Mercury, if you didn’t know anything about him before reading this you’d come out…not knowing much more about him! Not that I expect a biography, but it feels like Maya finds out a couple of key facts about his identity and has no interest beyond that, but still uses him as a baseline for what she should be doing (what would Freddie do is, however, a brilliant life motto).
The main issue, I think, is how superficial a lot of it is, partly due to how much is squeezed in. I appreciated Maya, as a young British woman, clashes with her parents, and showing how difficult it can be when parents put certain expectations on you, but again, this felt surface level and ultimately, everything was wrapped in a bit of a rushed way.
A lot of the issues I had with the book lies with the editing. Streamlining things and allowing the different elements a bit more room to breathe would have done wonders for this, as well as making it just a little shorter (do we really need contemporary YA that’s almost 330 pages?). Or maybe I’m just getting old and the kids these days absolutely love this, so I could be completely wrong, but overall, although I enjoyed parts of this book, I definitely think it could have been much stronger.
Reading Challenge
Romance Readers Diversity Challenge 2025 ❤️
Prompt: A book featuring an Asian male lead
Progress: 10/12 + 1 Bonus
Unwrapping Words 