I’ve moved on from a bunch of chick-lit arcs to a load of queer ones and Camp was a nice book to start with. I received it as a free e-book from NetGalley so in return I’ll be posting an honest review.
It focuses on Randy, a high-femme teenage boy who is totally in love with a boy at camp called Hudson. The only problem is that Hudson only dates masc boys and for Randy to get his chance, he’ll have to change completely in the hope Hudson will fall for all of him. This is a pretty typical rom-com in some aspects and obviously, it doesn’t go the way he expected and there’s lot of problems.
But Camp is a quick and easy read with a cast of wonderful queer characters. I actually learned some stuff about queer history in the US that I didn’t know before. There were some really fun and entertaining scenes and I did laugh out loud a lot.
My only problem is that it took me a while to root for the romance. With Hudson being very anti anything stereotypically gay and Randy lying about who he was…it just sometimes seemed like too much. Even if it was only a summer romance how could it really work? But when they finally started to solve their problems, I’ll admit, they did become pretty cute. And they are teenagers, they’re gonna be dicks sometimes and make mistakes. So I can forgive them that.
Overall this is definitely a book that deals with toxic masculinity but it does it in a very fun and very queer way. I’d definitely recommend it.
4 Stars
Lace and Dagger Books 