The Birds, The Bees, and You and Me by Olivia Hinebaugh

This book. This book makes me feel conflicted in a way I haven't for a while. The Birds, The Bees, and You and Me is the story of Lacey, a teenage girl who has been raised to be very informed about sexual health. When her school starts running terrible sex ed lessons, she takes matters into her own hands and begins teaching her classmates about sexual matters. However, this is only a small part of the book. Lacey is best friends with Theo and Evita, who used to date but broke up due to Evita's asexuality. Theo has a new girlfriend who neither Lacey nor Evita really like. Lacey has started to develop feelings for Theo, and she is also conflicted about whether to spend her future studying to be a nurse (like her mum) or following her music passion (like her friends want her to).

I'm gonna start with the positives of this book because there are a few. Firstly, the sexual health stuff is all great. It's handled a little obviously but that doesn't bother me in a book like this and there are a few self-aware moments of characters being preachy. I really liked the pregnant teen plotline and all of the nurse stuff, while possibly unrealistic, was very unique and enjoyable to read about. Evita is asexual and honestly such a fantastic character. Aside from being a little mean to Theo, she is a great friend to Lacey throughout and is unrealistically understanding about absolutely everything. At the beginning, I also really liked Lacey and Theo. My fondness for Lacey mostly remained throughout but Theo...

Oh Theo.

This romance was BAD. There was nothing inherently wrong with it on the surface but there were a lot of unfortunate choices made. Firstly, Theo and Lacey had such a good friendship at the start. The second romance came into it, I stopped being interesting in their relationship. Theo set off all kinds of warning bells I don't think he was meant to. He was secretive, he put a wedge between Lacey and her friends, he was instantly controlling and negative about her potentially not going to the same college as him. I kept waiting for the narrative to reveal their relationship was a bad idea and for Lacey to dump him but that never happened. The only part I liked were their sex scenes and that's only because they were written so well. They demonstrated how to have discussions about consent and boundaries without it ruining the mood, and how good sexual communication should work.

I really really wish this hadn't been a romance. It could have worked so much better without that plot and I hated seeing Lacey and Evita's friendship being disturbed by some guy. Even with Evita magically being the most understanding person ever, Lacey never really addressed how rubbish she was to her friend and it felt like Theo was happy for things to stay that way. So many elements of this book are good so it seems a shame to rate it so low, but I just couldn't enjoy it the way it was written.

Overall Rating:

.5