A review by ourxstorybegins
If This Gets Out by Cale Dietrich, Sophie Gonzales

5.0

Ohhhh my gosh, I made the mistake of going into this book viewing it as “One Direction Fan Fiction” but honestly? I take that back. Whether or not it was inspired by the group, trying to call it that feels like it’s simplifying the story. I read this one within 24 hours and it was absolutely adorable. 

Some Highlights: 
  • I love that all four boys in this group were friends before becoming a group and it was more about a group of friends trying to navigate the music industry and balance trying to follow what’s expected of them and also maintaining their friendship.
  • Absolutely adored Angel. His character was so funny and despite his very serious storyline, he still managed to contribute a lot of the best one-liners. I know this book is a standalone but I would not be upset if I saw him again.
  • Zach and Ruben and their relationships with their moms were really interesting. Zach and his mom are close, but the relationship between Ruben and his mom is pretty toxic (with his mother being overly invested in whatever the media has to say about him and, as a result, hypercritical of him instead of those media outlets).
  • I really appreciate that the romance was figured out and came to be fairly early in the book. I was concerned that Zach or Ruben would be one of the ones who was really trying to be secretive and there’d be more doubt and whatnot, but instead they figured themselves out pretty quickly so that we could focus on the way their label handles the situation and the drama among the band.

I do wish there had been a little bit more at the end. I would have loved to seen Ruben’s mom come to terms with the fact that her behavior is hurting her son, whether it’s intentional or not. I also would have liked to see more regarding their label at the end. I blame this on the fact that I’ve gotten very used to epilogues in my romances, aha. Still, I had an incredible time reading this book!

ESCAPES RATING:
Enjoyment - 10 | Start - 9 | Characters - 9 | Atmosphere - 10 | Plot - 10 | Ending - 9 | Style - 10