Double Booked by Lily Lindon - Review

 

I picked this book up earlier in the year somewhere or other, because I was really intrigued by the blurb and thought it sounded great. I took it away on holiday to Greece with me thinking it would be perfect holiday reading. I ended up really not liking it. I made my way through it and then left it on the bookshelf in the hotel because I knew I wouldn't read it again. I saw a woman I had spoken to briefly had picked it up and I wanted to say 'This isn't representative of what I usually read! It isn't very good!' but I didn't. I can't really say why it wasn't my thing. I do think it skews a lot younger than it is. Georgina is 26 but it reads more like Young Adult than fiction for adults. 

Anyway yes the protagonist is Georgina, known as Gina to her friends. She lives with her boyfriend, Doug, who she met at university seven years ago and started a relationship with. They have a boring, uber scheduled life. This is partly due to Gina's past because of some trauma she lived through, which she got through by setting strict routines. But it's also partly because Doug is just really extremely boring. Gina's best friend Soph is a vlogger and influencer who is Black and a lesbian. She drags Gina out to a gay bar one night where Gina meets Kit, who is in a really cool band called Phase. Gina ends up joining the band as their drummer. The others just assume that she is gay like them and she just doesn't .......bother telling them otherwise? It's really annoying because if she just spoke up it would be fine. But I guess part of the problem is that Gina realises she has a crush on Kit. She starts to unpack her bisexuality. I absolutely didn't have a problem with this - it happens to tons of people and I did quite like the way she did this.

But, what I didn't like was the way that George - as the band calls her - starts to change herself to make herself seem queerer and to 'fit in' more. She cuts her hair, she starts to wear flannel shirts and Doc Marten boots and like, I get that, I'm here for people exploring themselves, but it just seemed so trite? It really annoyed me. Plus Gina is lying to her boyfriend which annoyed me, and people should just sit down and talk to each other. 

I also really didn't like how Soph reacted to her friend coming out. They needed a better chat about it at the end of the book but again that didn't happen. I understood why Sophie felt a bit threatened and a bit annoyed but again like - don't we welcome people into the queer community? I would if it was a friend of mine. 

I'm apparently still angry about this book even though it's two months since I read it by the time I'm writing this! I'm giving this two out of five and I definitely wouldn't read anything else by the author. I really hope that the woman who picked this up enjoyed it more than I did!