The Sky Blues – review + blog tour

Hello friends,
Hope you are safe and your reading progress is smooth! 💛📚


After a month and six days, here comes the new review. Today’s post is a review + blog tour post, for Robbie Couch’s The Sky Blues. 🌈

This post was meant to be posted yesterday as part of my tour stop for the book. I’m posting it today.

 

Review

OMG. What a masterpiece this book is! So much fun and beautiful, I truly wished for it to never end. Sky Baker, the openly gay MC, is really an awesome guy with an emotionally disturbing past. I loved Sky for being his true self – carefree, helpful, and a great friend. The writing is so smooth and tight-knit that I never found myself bored of it. Full of humour, some real life dialogues and all the great fun, the young and energetic writing is a treat to read. The Sky and his friendship with his friends is so refreshing and warm – I wish to get such fun & caring friends in my life! In the entire book, Sky’s friends help him with promposal ideas to take care of him during homophobic e-blast episode, and this strong friendship is the backbone of the book.

Talking about the real issues the book is centered on  – homophobia, racism, transphobia. Well, the blurb shows the book is all about homophobia, but in reality, add racism and transphobia in it. I forgot to add social anxiety in the ingredients. The book very calmly talks about these social issues, without going overboard with them. Nor these issues make the book look oppressive. Sky is facing homophobia from the entire Rock Ledge, and somewhere, I feel that his family is responsible for it. Racism, transphobia and social anxiety are the support to the real issue of the book – transphobia. But they too are portrayed so comfortably, I wondered if the school system in the US is so weak and racist that it can’t protect LGBT and coloured students who constantly live in the fear of social rejection. 

The character development is honestly amazing and the world building is wonderful. All the characters have some important role in the story and the role portrayal is worthy of applause. From Sky to Ali and the villain, every character takes the story forward with perfect timing, excellent emotion display and all the swag and charm the high school brings. Personally, I wished for some characters to be taken out to make the story more refined and light. Not that these extra characters are slowing down the story, it’s just that I wished to get a minimum audience here. The warm and sparkling chemistry between Sky and Ali made me wish they were a real life couple while having read only half of the book! Other than that, I loved Bree, Marshall (okay, they are Sky’s best friends!), Mrs Brandstone and Winter (I won’t spoil who these two humans are!). 

I seriously loved the book, and I won’t stop recommending this gem to all the readers, because this book has the charm and style to make you support everyone, everytime. And yes, LGBT people are humans! And yes yes, coloured people are humans too!!

 

Endnotes

The perfect amount of all the emotions, strong LGBT vibes, then honest and subtle display of homophobia and deep friendship – all adds up to make the book the best LGBT read for me! I DEFINITELY, DEFINITELY, DEFINITELY RECOMMEND THIS BOOK – FOR THIS BOOK IS A ROLLERCOASTER OF TRUE LOVE, REAL FRIENDSHIP AND SOME SERIOUS ISSUES DEALT BEAUTIFULLY!! 🌈

Rating – 10/10 💛🌈


Book Details

TITLE: The Sky Blues
AUTHOR: Robbie Couch
PUBLISHER: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
RELEASE DATE: April 6th, 2021
GENRES: YOUNG ADULT FICTION — Contemporary, Romance

BUY LINK: https://bookshop.org/a/11727/9781534477858

SYNOPSIS:

Sky’s small town turns absolutely claustrophobic when his secret promposal plans get leaked to the entire school in this witty, heartfelt, and ultimately hopeful debut novel for fans of What if it’s Us? and I Wish You All the Best.

Sky Baker may be openly gay, but in his small, insular town, making sure he was invisible has always been easier than being himself. Determined not to let anything ruin his senior year, Sky decides to make a splash at his high school’s annual beach bum party by asking his crush, Ali, to prom—and he has thirty days to do it. What better way to start living loud and proud than by pulling off the gayest promposal Rock Ledge, Michigan, has ever seen?

Then, Sky’s plans are leaked by an anonymous hacker in a deeply homophobic e-blast that quickly goes viral. He’s fully prepared to drop out and skip town altogether—until his classmates give him a reason to fight back by turning his thirty-day promposal countdown into a school-wide hunt to expose the e-blast perpetrator.

But what happens at the end of the thirty days? Will Sky get to keep his hard-won visibility? Or will his small-town blues stop him from being his true self?

About the Author

 

Robbie Couch is the author of the young adult romantic-comedy novel, The Sky Blues. His work has been published in HuffPost, Upworthy, and O, The Oprah Magazine, among other outlets. Originally from small-town Michigan, Robbie now lives in Los Angeles, where he remains in constant fear of aggressive birds and on the prowl for his next bowl of noodles.

*I thank team Turn the Pages Tours for a spot on this tour and giving me an opportunity to read this beautiful book.*