“Technically You Started It” by Lana Wood Johnson

This book hit so perfectly for me. I think I truly was the ideal audience going in. At first I thought I was reading it because the whole thing is written as a text conversation. Which is so creative and unique, so I figured that was why I was interested. Then turns out that the main character is demisexual, and so is the author. And then I realized oh no, that’s probably how it first got on my radar.

The book’s premise is pretty simple, Martin Nathaniel Munroe II texts Haley to see which question she picked on an AP U.S. History exam. The rest of the book consists of the conversations between the two of them as they get to know each other. Only issues is that there’s two Martin Nathanial Munroe II’s and Haley doesn’t know which one it is. He clarifies “The good one” and she thinks she knows, but she gets it wrong, and he doesn’t realize until it’s too late.

Eventually, Martin wants to clear things up and date Haley, but they keep being prevented from meeting. First Haley gets into a fight with a friend, then Martin falls and bangs his shoulder up. At that point, their mutual friend Jack grabs his phone and reveals what’s been going on to Haley. She feels let down, but eventually it gets sorted out and they start dating as Martin confesses his love over text and intention to sort things out in person. The book ends with Martin telling Haley to quit looking at her phone so he can kiss her.

This all super worked on me. I loved that you gradually got to know the characters as they got to know each other. They tell each other about parent stuff, friend stuff, teenage stuff, and to facilitate this they pretend that the other person is a random internet friend. The author definitely gets how teenagers talk while making the format work, there’s probably a few too many friends for me to keep track of, but that honestly isn’t essential to the plot. Thankfully the multiple Martins thing is clarified on the inside jacket, so going in blind might be a different experience but I enjoyed picking up on Martin trying to befriend Haley while she texts him thinking she’s texting his cousin.

There’s also a really great way it deals with their orientations. As internet friends, they discuss how they feel about crushes and attraction and all that. Haley doesn’t feel the spark until after, if at all. Which is why she broke up with Jack. Martin reveals that he’s bisexual, and talks about how his attraction for men vs women is different for him. It’s nice in that it goes in depth not just for the demisexual Haley, but also for the much more common bisexuality of Martin.

Yes it’s fluff, yes it’s cute. No I don’t care, I loved reading this. It was an easy read and I tore through the last 100 or so pages because I just wanted to know that they’d end up ok. If anything, I wish it kept going longer so that I could see them in a relationship, but it makes more sense for the story to stop there with this format. But a great way to show the asexual spectrum and an interesting format!