Review: What If It's Us

Review: What If It's Us?

9/26/2025

What If It's Us is a LGBTQ teen novel about two boys who have a chance encounter on the streets of New York City and spend the rest of their summer obsessing over each other. It's also a bit of a cautionary tale about the pitfalls of dating your friends... as by the end of the book all the characters are hooking up more freely than Rachel, Ross, Joey, Phoebe, Chandler and Monica. And yes, this causes problems.

The main characters are Arthur and Ben. Arthur's just in the city for the summer, doing an internship at his mother's high-powered law firm. He does very little work as he's more interested in Instagram stalking his friends back home, trying to score tickets for the HAMILTON Broadway Show, and checking out cute guys. While making a coffee run for the law firm, he runs into Ben on the street. Slightly older and much more experienced, Ben's on his way to the post office to mail off a box of belongings to his ex-boyfriend, Hudson. Arthur strikes up a conversation, but before he can ask for the stranger's name and contact info, Ben vanishes. The only clue Arthur has to his identity is a crumpled up mailing label with Hudson's name on it.

Both guys regret not learning more about the other, but Arthur takes it upon himself to begin a 21st century style investigation via social networking and web-stalking. Against the odds, he manages to locate Ben. But their reunion is still fraught with difficulties. Ben's not quite over Hudson... and Arthur's insecure and jealous. Plus, the clock is running out and Arthur will soon have to return home to Georgia.

The book is co-written by Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera. The writing style, with each author assuming the voice of one of the characters, reminded me of Will Grayson, Will Grayson. Frankly however, I think it was done more effectively in that book than this one. While the two voices are distinct and nicely rendered, there's a lot of repetition of plot which slows down the action. Also, Arthur's whininess and obsession with pop culture becomes tiresome after a while. The latter issue even seems like fan-pandering. While putting constant modern day references, tons of emojis, teen slang, etc. into a book might connect with youth reading it in 2018, it will definitely date the book in the years to come.

Overall, I enjoyed the book but the love story was the least interesting part for me. The first third of the novel, before the boys know who the other person was, is actually more intriguing. We've all had those chance encounters with others that seem to have promise but are then cut short. And our ignorance about who the other person actually is allows us to build our own stories about them. Romantic Arthur fantasizes that Ben will be a knight in shining armor who will heroically rescue him from his lingering virginity. Ben wonders if Arthur will the be "true love" he's been looking for but seems to keep sabotaging. While the quest for each other isn't enough to maintain the drama for the entirety of the novel, finding each other just kind of reinforces how incompatible they actually are yet I don't feel the book really addressed this. Instead, we get a "everything's OK" ending that really does feel like a FRIENDS episode.

I liked Abertalli's Simon vs. the Homo Sapien Agenda much more, and I liked Silvera's voice for Ben more than Albertalli's voice for Arthur. But, that being said, What If It's Us is still a fun rom-com-style ride.

RELATED: LGBTQ Book Collection | LGBTQ YA Collection on Bookshop.org

THE SEQUEL TO WHAT IF IT'S US:
Arthur is back in New York City for the first time in two years, ready to take the theater world by a storm as the assistant of an off-off-Broadway director. Of course, it sucks to be spending the summer apart from his sweet, reliable boyfriend, Mikey, but he knows their relationship is strong enough to weather the distance.

Which is why it’s no big deal when his ex-boyfriend Ben stumbles back into the picture. And it’s definitely fine that Ben’s blissfully happy with some mystery boy. First loves are special, but it’s way too late for what-ifs. Right?