Five Reasons Why I Didn’t Like Love Blind by Christia Desir & Jolene Perry

What: Love Blind by Christia Desir & Jolene Perry

Who: Simon Pulse

When: May 10th 2016

How: A copy of this novel was provided by Simon & Schuster for review via Edelweiss.

It starts with a list of fears. Stupid things really. Things that Hailey shouldn’t worry about, wouldn’t worry about if she didn’t wake up every morning with the world a little more blurry. Unable to see her two moms clearly. Unable to read the music for her guitar. One step closer to losing the things she cares about the most.

For a while, the only thing that keeps Hailey moving forward is the feeling she gets when she crosses something off the list.

Then she meets Kyle. He mumbles—when he talks at all—and listens to music to drown out his thoughts. He’s loaded down with fears, too. So Hailey talks him into making his own list.

Together, they stumble into an odd friendship, helping each other tackle one after another of their biggest fears. But fate and timing can change everything. And sometimes facing your worst fear makes you realize you had nothing to lose after all.

Here I am, once again, writing a review for a book I thought was going to be LGBTQIA+ and was not. My luck? Shit.

Anyway, regardless of that nice little fact there, here are the reasons why Love Blind was not for me:

1) The bisexual erasure.

When Kyle, one of our two narrators, immediately asks Hailey (the second narrator) if she’s gay because she has two moms, she says something like “I don’t know where I fall on the gay-straight continuum yet; I’m young”. Hmm, okay. Sure. Whatever.

Hailey spends the majority of the book thinking about guys, and wanting to kiss and have sex with guys, so I was pretty certain that she had absolutely zero interest in anyone but these guys. And then a girl comes along, who likes her. Hailey is all: I don’t want to lead you on because I don’t even know if I like girls. *eye twitch* But okay.

These two start a semi relationship. Kyle literally says that Hailey is “gay”. DUDE, fucking seriously? You know she had a boyfriend, and that she was interested in you before she started the ~thing~ with this girl. And you just have to make her gay now? There is a sexual orientation, and it’s called BISEXUALITY.

Oh, and then Hailey breaks off the ~thing~ with the girl, and realises that no, she’s “not a lesbian”. Oh. For. Fuck’s. Sake. So not only did her character perpetuate the ‘bisexuality is a phase’ thing by pretty much using those words herself, but she also erased the identity completely. CONGRATULATIONS. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ADDING TO THE ALREADY OVERFLOWING BI ERASURE. BLESS.

2) The time jumping.

Two chapters went by in Love Blind and then one of the characters mentions months going by. What the hell? This actually happened a lot in this novel. Kyle was a junior at the beginning of the novel, and was at the end of his first college year at the end of it. And there was no clear way to determine how much time had passed, until one of the characters mentioned it. I feel like it would have worked better if the book had been told in parts or something, because it was hella confusing to try and figure out how old they were, or how much time had passed.

3) Hailey and Kyle.

Hailey was judgemental as all hell. She didn’t even like her friends, which she said on many occasions. Okay, then why are you hanging out with them then? She was also really negative in her thoughts about Kyle, so it was a tad unbelievable that she suddenly had feelings for him, after saying that she pretty much wanted him as a project because he was “more fucked up” than she was, or anyone she knew. Yeah, good on you.

The first two thirds of the novel from Kyle’s perspective involved him:

a- checking out Hailey’s boobs

b- checking out Hailey’s ass

c- imagining making out with Hailey

d- imagining having sex with Hailey

e- getting a hard-on

While, sure, we all know sex is on the teenage guy’s brain, I also felt like Kyle was the biggest fucking creep ever. And it also felt really try-hardy depict an ~accurate~ teenage guy by throwing in sexual shit every five seconds.

4) “X deserves better” “Until I deserve X”

UGHUGHUGHGHGHGHG. I just cannot with this kind of bullshit. I hate it when people think about being “deserving” of someone else. Or having to change themselves to “deserve” someone. Or be “better” to “deserve” someone. If someone doesn’t love you for who you freaking are, then maybe THEY don’t deserve YOU. Why should you have to try so hard to feel worthy of them? You’re worthy of everyone, if you’re not a complete asshole.

5) The ending.

In the air and unresolved, which I can sometimes handle, but I was so not down for this shit after pushing through this novel.

trigger warning: depressed + drug abusive mother, absent father (who cheated), loss of vision via car accident, statutory rape, bullying, physical assault, and sexual assault/rape (with inanimate object) in this novel

© 2016, Chiara @ Books for a Delicate Eternity. All rights reserved.