More Happy Than Not by Adam Silvera – Mini Spoiler Free Audiobook Review

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Title: More Happy Than Not
Author: Adam Silvera
Narrator: Ramon de Ocampo
Genre: YA GLBT Contemporary
Publication Date: June 2nd, 2015
Pages: 300 (Paperback)
Publishers: Soho Teen
Rating:

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Part Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, part Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, Adam Silvera’s extraordinary debut novel offers a unique confrontation of race, class and sexuality during one charged near-future summer in the Bronx.

When it first gets announced, the Leteo Institute’s memory-alteration procedure seems too good to be true to Aaron Soto—miracle cure-alls don’t tend to pop up in the Bronx projects. Aaron can’t forget how he’s grown up poor, how his friends all seem to shrug him off, and how his father committed suicide in their one bedroom apartment. He has the support of his patient girlfriend, if not necessarily his distant brother and overworked mother, but it’s not enough.

Then Thomas shows up. He doesn’t mind Aaron’s obsession over the Scorpius Hawthorne books and has a sweet movie set-up on his roof. There are nicknames. Aaron’s not only able to be himself, but happiness feels easy with Thomas. The love Aaron discovers may cost him what’s left of his life, but since Aaron can’t suddenly stop being gay Leteo may be the only way out.

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So I read this book via Audiobook but I want to reread it in physical form. This will be a kinda mini review as I will post a full review when I read the book.

So these mini reviews I occasional write will be set up differently to my normal reviews. Usually, I split my reviews up into the following sections: Cover Art, Writing, Plot, Characters & Overall. But these ones I’m going to separate into Likes & Dislikes and for this one, I’ll also add an Audiobook category.

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So I didn’t love the audiobook itself. For one thing, it sounded like the MC’s name was Erin but it is actually Aaron. So for the entire book, I thought it was Erin until adding the synopsis at the top of this review. So yeah I just thought that the MC was Erin and his brother was Eric.

Also, the narrator puts on different voices for each of the characters which all narrators do. But I had real trouble distinguishing between Aaron & Thomas’s voices when it was direct back and forth conversation where it didn’t say ‘……. said’ or similar. Which was really annoying.

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So in the synopsis, it says that Aaron is gay so there will be no actual spoilers.

Firstly the main thing that stood out to me was when Aaron was coming to terms with being gay and also when he was admitting it the first time. Every thought was shown that was going through his head and you see the actual struggle going on with himself which I liked because I have never read that before, most of the LGBTQIA+ books I have read weren’t coming out stories, so this was interesting.

I also loved all the little jokes that both Aaron & Thomas told, I actually loved out loud a fair few times!

I also really enjoyed how Thomas reacted to finding out about Aaron being gay. Especially the nickname they gave to ‘gay’ because Aaron still didn’t know how he felt about the label.

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Okay so I won’t say any names, but there is cheating in this book and it’s basically just there and no one makes a big deal about cheating. Personally, cheating is something I will not stand for in the slightest and I hated this part of the book!

I also strongly disagree with a certain person allowing the procedure when there were so many things that could go wrong. Risking the person’s life like that I do not agree with. If it had no possible side effects or ones that weren’t lasting damage then sure in that situation then sure but not with all those possible side effects.

There is no way I can say this next bit without spoilers! So don’t continue if you haven’t read it.
I also really disliked Aarons reaction to Thomas not being gay. Just because Thomas was understanding and didn’t automatically hate Aaron when he admitted he was gay doesn’t automatically mean he is gay too. And how Aaron kept trying to convince himself that Thomas was just lying to himself about being gay. Even right at the end he still had this in his head. That really annoyed me.

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So I didn’t enjoy this but I had a few small issues with this. I do still want to give it another go by actually reading it eventually as I didn’t love the audiobook and I also found myself not 100% paying attention at times when the book was going a bit slow.