Name: Bria's review of Out of the Blue by Jason June
Item: Out of the Blue
Rating: 2
Author: Bria

Jason June

From Jason June, author of the breakout teen debut novel Jay’s Gay Agenda, comes Out of the Blue, a stand-alone dual POV queer rom-com that asks if love is enough to change everything you’ve grown up believing. Perfect for fans of Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas and Deep Blue by Jennifer Donnelly. 

Crest is not excited to be on their Journey: the month-long sojourn on land all teen merfolk must undergo. The rules are simple: Help a human within one moon cycle and return to Pacifica to become an Elder—or fail and remain stuck on land forever. Crest is eager to get their Journey over and done with. Humans are disgusting. They’ve polluted the planet so much that there’s a floating island of trash that’s literally the size of a country.

In Los Angeles with a human body and a new name, Crest meets Sean, a human lifeguard whose boyfriend has recently dumped him. Crest agrees to help Sean make his ex jealous and win him back. But as the two spend more time together, and Crest’s perspective on humans begins to change, they’ll soon be torn between two worlds. And fake dating just might lead to real feelings . . .

This sophomore novel from Jason June dives into the many definitions of the word home and shows how love can help us find the truest versions of ourselves. 

Out of the Blue

Genesis (@whisperingchapters)

Bria

The fake dating didn’t seem like fake dating

kait

i am so surprised by this because i just picked it up based on the cover and it did NOT disappoint. every single aspect of this worked and i loved every second of it. i was absolutely hooked by these characters and i will definitely be reading more from this author as soon as i can!

Phinn

I love how dramatic everything is in this book

Alex

VERY GOOD, 4 STARS.
Loved this story of accepting that you are enough as a person and don't always need someone else to be enough, that part really hit me. 
That ending tho, cried my eyes out. Loved the little "plot twist". 

So overal a very fun and easy read, would 100% recommend.

Latitude Tamarind

This book gets four stars from me, almost exclusively because of the inclusion of a nonbinary POV character. I enjoyed the humor in this a lot as well. I also was a big fan of the worldbuilding around merpeople — I enjoyed that this was A Paranormal Book that involved merpeople instead of your standard werewolf, etc. I feel solidly neutral-to-positive about this book; I think it was cute and nice but it’s not going to become one of my favorites.

Avery Baumel

Reading a book about mermaids was not on my list. This comes from picking books solely from images of their spines, but this truly was an excellent book, if odd. Again, home/family exploration was great!!

Eliana Mor

why do "sex positive" books always say the cringiest, most unreal things? and they're never really sex positive, they just diminish relationships to sex

Inez

** spoiler alert **
           I fell for the cover, it was the cutest, I love mermaid so much and the color for the cover is so lovely!

Now about the book! It was a very fun book, fake dating trope is always nice *chef's kiss*, also I genuinely love the adorableness of Ross when they learned how to be human, their awkwardness makes me want to squeal in joy. Oh, not to mention Sean's love for movie, and his 'obsession' about his perfect movie, how he thought about his love life in movie format.

I am giving it four stars simply because it feels too slow for me, and some traits from the characters that I don't really understand. Like, why did they do that? What was the reason exactly because that sounds light to me? But overall, my friends, Out of the Blue is a nice book, I love reading it!

Thank you Harper Collins and Netgalley for the eARC.

Paige Green

Disclaimer: I received this e-arc from the publisher. Thanks! All opinions are my own.

Book: Out of the Blue

Author: Jason June

Book Series: Standalone

Rating: 5/5

Diversity: Gay Plus Size MC, Nonbinary MC, Gay character, Bisexual Hispanic character, Indian Bisexual character, Sapphic characters, Nonbinary person of color character

Recommended For...: young adult readers, fantasy, mermaids, romance, LGBT, contemporary

Publication Date: May 31, 2022

Genre: YA Fantasy Romance

Age Relevance: 15+ (sexual content, language, romance, gore, cheating, violence, depression, death, grief)

Explanation of Above: There is some sexual content in this book. There is sex mentioned and implied. Nothing is graphically shown, but there is lead-up before the fade to black and in one scene there’s flowery language about it. There is a few curse words in the book. There is a lot of romance in this book. There is some gore involving vomit and blood in the book and one scene where a fist fight breaks out for violence. Depression is briefly mentioned a couple of times in the book. There is a very brief death scene and grief scene. There is cheating shown and mentioned in the book.

Publisher: HarperTeen

Pages: 320

Synopsis: Crest is not excited to be on their Journey: the monthlong sojourn on land all teen merfolk must undergo. The rules are simple: Help a human within one moon cycle and return to Pacifica to become an Elder--or fail and remain stuck on land forever. Crest is eager to get their Journey over and done with: after all, humans are disgusting. They've pollluted the planet so much that there's a floating island of trash that's literally the size of a country.

In Los Angeles with a human body and a new name, Crest meets Sean, a human lifeguard whose boyfriend has recently dumped him. Crest agrees to help Sean make his ex jealous and win him back. But as the two spend more time together and Crest's pespective on humans begins to change, they'll soon be torn between two worlds. And fake dating just might lead to real feelings...

Review: Okay this was an incredibly cute read! I loved this mix of mermaid fantasy but they’re kinda operating as fairy godmothers to gather intel and living a month away from their colony ala Rumspringa like the Amish. The book is a bit of a grumpy/sunshine romance in the beginning, but is very much a fake dating romance. The book does well to make the mermaid fantasy spin fresh and new and I loved all of the queer-ness of this book! The characters are well developed and the romance was so sweet. I loved the world building as well and I read this book in one sitting.

The only issue I had with the book is that it was a bit slower paced in the middle than I would have liked to see it. I also thought that the book was a bit too quick with the epilogue, so I’m hoping for a loose sequel in the future for the two MCs, but also to encounter other fantasy elements in the world together.

Verdict: It was a well done read. Highly recommend!

Genesis (@whisperingchapters) &
Out of the Blue by Jason June

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Out of the Blue by Jason June