Date Me, Bryson Keller: TikTok made me buy it!

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For me, though, it feels like I’m waiting for my very own letter to my very own Hogwarts. Magic and adventure await me, too, in a city where no one knows me, and where I can be my true self. Everyone knows about the dare: Each week, Bryson Keller must date someone new - the first person to ask him out on Monday morning. Few think Bryson can do it. He may be the king of Fairvale Academy, but he's never really dated before. The Bryson that appears in the finished draft is vastly different from the one who first showed up in my earlier drafts. I really have my editor to thank for that. She pushed me to make him as developed as Kai.

Kai Sheridan didn't expect Bryson to say yes. So when Bryson agrees to secretly go out with him, Kai is thrown for a loop. But as the days go by, he discovers there's more to Bryson beneath the surface, and dating him begins to feel less like an act and more like the real thing. Kai knows how the story of a gay boy liking someone straight ends. With his heart on the line, he's awkwardly trying to navigate senior year at school, at home, and in the closet, all while grappling with the fact that this "relationship" will last only five days. After all, Bryson Keller is popular, good-looking, and straight . . . right?The good news? Kindle not only provides me easy breezy reading at the push of a button, but I just discovered there’s also a Netflix app. Now we can sit in the same room, he can watch his mafia hitman do their thing and I can watch movies meant for teenagers. After all, their "relationship" only lasts five days and the popular, good-looking Bryson Keller is straight... right?!

KVW: If you'd asked me a couple of months ago, my answer would probably be different, but given everything that's going on in the world, it's a very strange experience. There's a lot of excitement, but there's also anxiety because I feel like it came out and there's really so much going on. Did it get the attention it needed? It’s weird to find the joy in that moment, but I'm happy and proud of what I put out. And I'm glad that readers are finding it and have been messaging me that it's resonated with them, so that makes it all worth it. But being a debut author during a global pandemic is really an experience. MC: I love the tropes. They, like we were saying, make the story just feel that much more rich, more relatable, and they add that extra layer. There's so much you can do with tropes and they’re so much fun.

Kai Sheridan didn’t expect Bryson to say yes. So when Bryson agrees to secretly go out with him, Kai is thrown for a loop. But as the days go by, he discovers there’s more to Bryson beneath the surface, and dating him begins to feel less like an act and more like the real thing. Kai knows how the story of a gay boy liking someone straight ends. With his heart on the line, he’s awkwardly trying to navigate senior year at school, at home, and in the closet, all while grappling with the fact that this “relationship” will last only five days. After all, Bryson Keller is popular, good-looking, and straight . . . right? Laser-Guided Karma: Rightfully so for both Dustin and Shannon. The former got severely punished in school and beaten up by his former best friend for leaking the photo of the main couple while the latter who wrote an article outing Kai is implied to be banned from ever writing for the school newspaper in addition to blowing her shot at class valedictorian, her choice of school and Bryson's good graces. Don’t get me wrong, there are some cute parts in this novel! Kai and Bryson go on dates, have fun, get overly romantic & sappy. It’s sweet at times! Bryson’s mom and sister are very cool with him not being straight (in stark contrast to Kai’s mom). It’s not all bad. In a word, in a phrase? It’s a preachy bulshit. If you’re looking for a light, cute gay romcom, you should keep looking. This book is not it. MC: It definitely sounded like it. Like I said, it's that extra second element that adds another layer of own voices and really makes this story unique and that much more profound. We're seeing such an influx of own-voices stories, rightfully so, right now. But I feel like a lot of times you don't also get that extra element of an own-voices performer, so it feels so much more special and so much more important.

Basically nothing new just cute and swoon worthy romance. Two teenage boys being each other 'pretend' boyfriends within five days. The romance between Kai and Bryson of course was cheesy at best. But at the same time it was dreamy as hell. The fact that this book brought this huge grin on my face and made me crave for something I wouldn't really want in real life was definitely a fun time. MC: Of course. So I absolutely loved this story. It's such an upbeat and heartwarming boy-meets-boy romance. And most importantly, it's also an own-voices story. And I will fully admit that I basically listened to the entirety of it in one sitting because I couldn't put it down once I started. MC: I cannot wait, that sounds so fantastic. And we get another amazing fake relationship in there, so there's so much to look forward to. MC: Definitely. I want to talk about Bryson Keller a little bit more, because he's like the perfect popular it-boy. I think he's probably one of those characters that every queer teen can look to and be like, "Wow, I wish I had someone like that." So what went into crafting this character?There are a lot of complaints I could make about the story itself: Bad dialogue ran rampant. The boyfriend was ‘too perfect’– definitely one we might dream up, but can’t exist. The flow of the story was choppy. The narrative too simple most of the time, the majority of the characters 1-dimensional...