Author: Simon James Green
Rating: 2/5
Noah and Harry have become boyfriends but when exchange students from France come to town, everything goes haywire.
Spoilers ahead.
Detailed Summary
Noah’s parents are back together and Mick, a drag queen who goes by Bambi, also stays with them. Eric occasionally stays over too. Students from France come over to stay. Harry is paired with Pierre who is gay and ridiculously attractive. Noah is paired with Eva, a girl who smokes and carries a guitar case. They don’t get along. Noah is jealous of Pierre and feels he isn’t attractive enough for Harry. There are a whole load of shenanigans where Noah tries to impress Harry in front of Pierre. While all this is happening, Noah is followed by a black car with a lady and man. Gran’s dementia is getting worse. She starts a band with other people in the care home. She’s obsessed with her tiara. Eric and Noah’s father steal the tiara to sell the diamonds on it. Pierre invites Noah to an apology picnic and kisses him. Noah, Harry, Pierre, Mick and Eva chase Eric and the father down to London. They get the diamonds at the London Zoo but they get eaten by a duck. Mick captures the duck and puts it in his van. Mick’s drag show goes horribly but they stay at a nice hotel.
A school teacher realises the kids have gone missing and calls their parents to take them home. Eric and the father pick Noah up and force him to give the bag of poop (with the diamonds). Eva is arrested by the people following Noah for selling drugs (they were in her guitar case). Harry breaks up with Noah because he doesn’t like how Noah thinks he’s not good enough for Harry. Eric reveals to Noah that the real diamonds were in the fish tank that Noah had taken from the nursing home and given to Harry. He goes to Harry’s house and apologises but also starts rooting around in the trash for the diamonds. Harry gets mad and won’t talk to Noah. At the school dance, Noah talks to Harry in private and apologises. They make up and it’s all good. Harry gives Noah the diamonds he had dug out from the trash too.
Plot and Pacing
I was hoping for something more than this. Noah and Harry’s relationship was definitely flushed out more in this book. It’s clear that Noah feels inadequate and ugly compared to Harry. He constantly puts himself down. The take-home message, I believe, is you don’t really accomplish anything by constantly existing in that negative loop. It’ll bring you down, bring your partner or friend down, and then proceed to decimate any shred of relationship that existed. Okay, perhaps that’s an exaggeration. I think it’s healthy to confess how you feel but after doing so, you have the responsibility to really listen to how your friend/partner feels about it and be reassured by their response. And to trust that they care deeply about you. I mean, that was the whole reason Harry broke up with Noah! For like ten pages!
With that being said, I still wasn’t a fan of all the little sub-plots. They were mildly funny just because of how ridiculous some of the situations were (I mean a duck eating diamonds and being captured until it pooped?) but I wanted more of Harry and Noah. They were the only reason I read the sequel!
I’m not a fan of love triangles but reading about the dynamic between Pierre, Noah and Harry was more interesting than the trip to London. All things said, it was a pretty fast-paced book which I was grateful for.
Oh, I almost forgot, “Hoah” made me cringe so much. But I appreciate Green trying to help fans out there with a ship name.
Characters
It irked me SO MUCH that Noah never told Harry about Pierre’s kiss. I always get super uncomfortable when characters do such things. Despite the fact that he never confessed, Harry just knew which goes to show how great of a character he is. Seriously, Harry is the most amazing person ever. I loved how sensitive and attuned he was to Noah’s feelings. Every one of his actions just screams love. I mean the poor dude sifted through piles of garbage to get those diamonds for Noah!
Noah didn’t seem to grow at all from the first to the second book. Or even during the second book. In the end, he does say that he’ll try harder and articulates his feelings for Harry. However, I would have liked to see Noah come to terms with his weirdness and really accept it as an integral part of his personality. I could definitely relate to Noah feeling inadequate and I loved how much that was explored but the lack of development didn’t bode well with me.
Writing Style
This book was better than the first in the series. It made me smile a bit wider. 🙂 There was one bit that really stood out to me. It’s a conversation between Noah and Gran:
“Will he always like me, though? Or will it just be until someone better comes along?”
“There is no one better, Noah. No one will ever be like you. There is only different. And in the future, everything is different. So you can choose to live in the anxious misery of what might be, or you can choose the glorious comfort of the here and now. I would pick the now. Tomorrow could be anything.”
That definitely put things into perspective for me and made me feel better about myself.
Earnestly Eccentric 