This is meant to be Albertalli processing figuring out that she was not in fact straight, while under pressure from the entire Internet complaining that she was painfully straight. I was curious how that was going to work in a story about teenagers, and if it'd be a coherent story rather than a screed.

Imogen, our high school–age heroine, ends up pretending to be bi to impress her best friend's cool college friends, while over-analysing every single thought in her head in a way that I found intensely relatable. There's also a very cute romance with one of the cool college friends, and the inevitable hilarious reveal that Imogen lied about being bisexual but is in fact bisexual.

The entire Internet telling her she's wrong aspect is embodied by one of her high-school friends, who is obsessed with The Discourse online, and figuring out the One True Way to be queer. This was probably slightly heavy handed, but the book narrowly saved the friend from cartoon villainy by setting up why she had those defence mechanisms in place. Plus, we all kinda know someone who's like that, so fair enough. They're all very young, and felt like it, rather than like adults playing teens.

I'm sure this has kicked off a whole new round of The Discourse, but I thought it was sweet and fun, and made some solid points about the damage done by enforcing the "right" way to be queer. Hopefully the youth appreciated it as intended.