TheseBooksAren'tMine's Reviews > Epically Earnest

I received an ARC from NetGalley as an educator.

Firstly, let me just say that I adore Oscar Wilde—his witticisms, his insights into the absurdities of social norms, and his willingness to exploit those for comedy's sake is what makes his writing so engaging. Taking the basic style of Wilde and applying it to the teenager of the 21st century makes perfect sense, and on that point, Epically Earnest does a great job. Molly Horan even uses quotations from Wilde himself to start each chapter, alluding to the unfolding comedy to come.

I can't deny that I enjoyed these characters—the utter campiness of Algernon (a name lifted straight from The Importance of Being Earnest), the tentativeness of Janey, the boldness of Gwen, and the adorable social awkwardness of Cecil. I loved that each of these characters were unequivocally queer and living their truth. Their high school drama (Does she like me? Who should I go with to prom?) cuts in nicely with Janey's more pressing and urgent questions (Who am I if I don't know who my biological relatives are?). I enjoyed watching Janey grapple with all of this, and her coterie of side characters made that journey enjoyable.

However, I don't know that anything especially exciting or epic, as the title would insinuate, really happened here. There wasn't a massive conflict, really, or any big revelations. It was hard to understand where a lot of the stress in these characters' privileged lives came from. Janey didn't even have any problem landing a true love, and I felt their relationship and all of the other romantic relationships lacked development and spark. The angst just didn't quite land.

In the end, this was cute and entertaining; I can think of many students who would enjoy this for the sheer appreciation of seeing queer teenagers doing normal teenager things and to that end, I would recommend it to several of my students on that merit alone.