Just Your Local Bisexual Disaster

 Tell me a story... about having to make a choice about your future

Just Your Local Bisexual Disaster by Andrea Mosqueda

Publication date: May 24, 2022

Date read: June 1, 2023

Growing up in Texas’s Rio Grande Valley, Maggie Gonzalez has always been a little messy, but she’s okay with that. After all, she has a great family, a goofy group of friends, a rocky romantic history, and dreams of being a music photographer. Tasked with picking an escort for her little sister’s quinceañera, Maggie has to face the that her feelings about her friends―and her future―aren’t as simple as she’d once believed.

This is a tough book for me to rate. There are some YA books that I think appeal to a wide audience and can be a good read for both teens and adults. Then there are some YA books that just scream YA. This is one of those books. 

First of all, the good. I loved the diversity and representation here. Multiple gay or bisexual characters, Hispanic main character, and a lot of diverse interests among the characters that I think teens would find interesting. I also adored the family dynamic in this story. If this book had been about Maggie's relationship with her sisters, I think it would have been lovely, and I would have enjoyed it a lot more. 

Unfortunately, the main plot of this book is the drama of Maggie having to choose between her ex-boyfriend, her best friend (who is straight, but maybe questioning), and the new girl in school. And I do mean drama. A lot of the thoughts from Maggie's point of view are very eye-rollingly cringy reading them as an adult, because the feelings are overly dramatic in a very teen way. But this is a book written for teens, so I can't completely throw it out. I think that many high schoolers wouldn't find it as cringy as I did and would enjoy the teen drama. 

My only real complaint is just how perfect the characters were, aside from their relationship dramatics. You had the amazing photographer and the amazing artist and the fashionista and the super sexy ex-boyfriend. No one has any flaws and are all way too perfect at their artistic endeavors that it just didn't seem realistic and often grated on my nerves. And unlike my previous complaint, this is an aspect that I don't think is great for teen readers either. 

Overall, I thought that this book had a lot of potential that it just couldn't live up to. I would still give it a light recommendation to teens, but I had so much hope for this book and I'm sad that it's not something that I think can appeal to a wide audience. Give me a book about Maggie's family next time, though, and I'll read it in a heartbeat. 

Rating: 2.5/5 stars

Content warning: slut-shaming, sexual assault, underage alcohol and drug use, police profiling and murder, death of a parent, homophobia

Note: language

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this book.