Happy book birthday to Why Can’t Relationships Be Like Pizza by Andy V Roamer! I’m so happy and honored to be a part of the Gay Book Promotions blog tour celebrating this third book in The Pizza Chronicles! This book is my favorite one in this sweet coming of age series written in diary format about a young boy trying to figure out life’s biggest questions such as sexuality, identity, religion, friendship and how to handle his strict immigrant parents. 

The story in Why Can’t Relationships Be Like Pizza continues where the second book left off, with RV entering sophomore year. Just as in the previous two books, the story is told via the diary entries RV makes at the end of each day in his computer journal where he struggles with his sexuality, relationships and questions about life in general. RV is such a geeky, sweet, innocent and awkward character, and has such a great humor, that even though I might have preferred to see some more perspectives to this story, it was always interesting and enjoyable to be inside his head this way.
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This third book was my favorite in this series, and had some great character growth and a more emotional plot. RV’s journey has finally reached a point where he fully accepts who he is, but relationships are still so complicated and give rise to new questions. RV still cares for Bobby, but Bobby seems a different, more distant person, and RV’s former girlfriend and best friend Carole is distracted by the ups and downs in her relationships with her French boyfriends. But as always, RV’s former teacher and mentor, Mr. Aniso, is there for advice and to help when it’s needed the most.

I really appreciated the way this story didn’t shy away from difficult topics such as homophobia, life-changing tragedies and mental health issues. I also really appreciated learning more about the complexity of life as an immigrant in the USA and how RV’s understanding of his parents, their reasons and their past, began to grow throughout this series.

All in all, this was a sweet coming-of-age story dealing with teenage confusion and important topics such as sexuality, family expectations and heredity, homophobia, self-discovery and self-acceptance in a cute and unique way. 

Thank you to Gay Book Promotions and Nine Star Press for the ARC and blog tour invitation! All opinions are my own and I am leaving my honest review voluntarily.

Rating:
3.5 adorkable stars rounding up to 4​

Get your own copy:
Amazon
Nine Star Press

​Author info:
Andy V. Roamer

This is the second book in The Pizza Chronicles, the sweet coming of age series written in diary format about a young boy trying to figure out life’s biggest questions such as sexuality, identity, religion, friendship and how to handle his strict immigrant parents.

In this second installment, we get to meet RV as freshman summer is about to start. Sadly though, RV’s summer turns out to be a never-ending disappointment, with Carole going to Paris, Bobby being occupied with football camp and extra work, and RV himself being forced by his parents to work at an auto shop/gas station store. In addition hereto, his family life is chaotic and he’s confused about how to be a good friend to Bobby who is struggling with his demanding parents and the way his sexuality might risk his football career.

Due to his friends’ absence, RV spends most of the summer alone and miserable, which made the story a bit slower this time and the diary writing style feeling a bit too one-handed. I would have appreciated some more interaction or other perspectives, but overall, it was yet again very interesting and enjoyable to learn about RV’s thoughts, self-reflecting monologues and questions about just about anything in life. I really appreciated the way RV struggled with ethics and trying to be a good person, and the discussions with his Latin teacher, the proudly-out gay Mr. Aniso, were just as insightful and empowering as in the first book.

All in all, this installment was another great step in RV’s continuous journey towards self-acceptance and gaining confidence to stay true to himself. RV still felt more like a middle-grader than a teenager and I can’t wait to continue the series to follow his growth journey and hopefully see some more action in the romance department for this sweet, adorkable, good-hearted and innocent character.

Thank you to Gay Book Promotions for the free review copy. All opinions are my own and I am leaving my honest review voluntarily.

Rating:
3 stars

Get your own copy:
Amazon
Nine Star Press

​Author info:
Andy V. Roamer

This is a sweet coming of age story written in diary format about a young boy trying to figure out life’s biggest questions such as sexuality, identity, religion, friendship and how to handle his strict immigrant parents.

RV is the fourteen-year-old son of Lithuanian immigrants, who has just been accepted to a very competitive Boston Latin School and who is trying to navigate his demanding life and questions about his own identity. He suspects he might be gay, but he hopes not, knowing that his bigoted parents will not accept it and wanting nothing more himself than to be “normal” (whatever that means) and stay out of the eye of the school bullies. To try and convince himself that he’s straight, he starts to go out with Carole in his class, but he can’t avoid thinking about Bobby, the school’s top football player.

The book is written as RV’s computer journal and is told via the diary entries RV makes at the end of each day. I have to admit that it took me a while to get into this writing style. At first it felt a bit too talkative and info overloaded as it really reflects RV’s random thoughts when rambling about just about everything that happens in his life. But after a while I got into it and think that it added to the uniqueness and cuteness of this book. At times though, this narrative made it a little too much telling not showing, and the story could feel a bit one-handed when we only got to see the events through RV’s eyes. But on the other hand, RV was such a geeky, sweet, innocent and awkward character, and with such a great humor, that it was interesting to be inside his head this way. RV didn’t feel like a typical fourteen-year-old, more like a middle-grader in the way he looked upon the world and his own feelings. Even his thoughts about boys were very innocent and focusing on holding hands and kissing, nothing really more advanced than that. At times he felt perhaps a bit too selfish and immature, and I didn’t like the way he talked about not wanting to be a “sissy” and praying to God not to be gay, but all in all I really enjoyed learning about RV’s thoughts and doubts, and to know more about the cultural aspects as a second-generation immigrant teenager in the US.

I also appreciated that the story didn’t shy away from topics such as homophobia or the harsh reality when RV’s openly gay Latin teacher Mr. Aniso was brutally attacked leaving a gay bar, and how RV started visiting him at the hospital. RV’s interactions with Mr. Aniso and their talks about identity and being proud of who you are were some of the best parts of the story. Through these talks RV really started his journey towards self-acceptance and gaining confidence to stay true to himself.

Another thing I really appreciated was how the friendship between RV and Bobby slowly grew and how they were able to carefully reveal their feelings for boys in general and each other. It would have been wonderful with a bit more romance here, but the shy way RV reacted matched his personally best.

All in all, this was a sweet coming-of-age story dealing with teenage confusion and important topics such as sexuality, family expectations and heredity, homophobia, self-discovery and self-acceptance in a cute and unique way. 

Thank you to Gay Book Promotions for the free review copy. All opinions are my own and I am leaving my honest review voluntarily.

Rating:
3 stars

Get your own copy:
Amazon
Nine Star Press

​Author info:
Andy V. Roamer