I enjoyed this book well enough and I read through it pretty fast. However, after rating it, I read through a few reviews only to find that most people I follow didn't like this book? Reading through reviews, some questionable content within the book has come to my attention. Of course, like all fictional content, it's up to reader interpretation, however, I am having a bit of a crisis. Do I review this book as a good read that I thought it was, and end up recommending a book with questionable themes to young, impressionable readers? I'm having a hard time here. I also didn't notice the questionable things when I read it either. Am I not as critical a reader with the content I'm consuming as I should be?

One of the things that I haven't seen in the reviews was anything regarding Jeremy. I'm slightly surprised because I had a real big problem with Jeremy. I hated him from the start, and I'll really get into why this is. First of all, his character is a trait I often see portrayed in media, the funny side-character who's portrayed as a poor sad guy who can't seem to get any girl to like him. This book is kind of self-aware and sometimes goes into detail about what a creepy dude he is and thus is why girls can't stand him. However, with this character, most often we see something common with the main character he is friends with. Complacency. This character is going to be super creepy towards girls, and the main character rolls his eyes and goes into detail about how his friends' behaviour is annoying and weird but is he going to actually tell his creepy friend off? No, of course not. The main character is complacent to the situation, aware his friend is really creepy towards girls but doesn't feel the need to do anything about it until it concerns him in some way. This is what happens in this book. I'm just going to leave it with you to think about the obvious misogyny here, and I'm going to talk about Jeremy's redemption. Evan, throughout the story, keeps stating how there's a good part of Jeremey within him somewhere, as some sort of justification and excuse for him being incredibly creepy towards women in the story. This is often an excuse we see men use to defend other men, he'll eventually learn he's being a giant douche, or, this isn't actually him he's a better person in different situations. This, for obvious reasons, disgusted me. Not to mention that Evan didn't care about Jeremy's shitty behaviour until it was directed towards him in the form of homophobia. This made Jeremy even more of a terrible character, but I couldn't respect Evan because of this either.

Aside from that, this book does have a Greek character which is cool, and his abuse made me feel a lot of sad feelings, and I encourage you to view his and Henry's relationship at your own discretion if you choose to read this book.

Honestly, all I heard was good things about this book before I read it, and I'm appalled that nobody bothered to mention the really terrible things about this book as well as the apparent good. 

By Faith Simon

Books like this hit me right in the heart, because the stuff that happens in this book happens every day in real life. It might be happening in your own home, or your neighbours home, or your best friends home. Somewhere, someone right at this minute is struggling with their identity, or their sexuality, or acceptance from those who are supposed to love and protect them.

The Dangerous Art of Blending In dealt with such a wide range of topics. All of them intertwined and impacted on the other. But I think this was the first time though that I had read a book that dealt with abuse from a mother. And I found that so hard to read. Your mother is supposed to love you, care for you, protect you. But Evan's mother does none of those things. She is physically abusive and verbally abusive. She is downright horrid! While she puts on a good show to outsiders, and portrays herself as the loving doting mother, behind closed doors things are very different.

Not only was Evan dealing with the abuse of his mother, but also the lack of help from the adults who knew what was happening. How could you turn a blind eye to that? How could you not do everything in your power to offer protection and stop the abuse? My heart broke for him.

While this book dealt with some really tough subject matters, there was also some really great things as well. Henry and his family were the shining light in this book, and I was so happy that Evan had them. They're loving and supportive, and everything that Evan's family isn't.

When you get to the end of this book I highly recommend reading the author's note. It really packs a punch and adds a whole other layer to the story. You'll look at everything you've just finished reading in a whole new light.

Thanks so much to the publisher for sending a copy my way for an honest review.

By Tracey