Why Can’t Relationships be like Pizza by Andy V Roamer

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