Imogen, Obviously
Book: Imogen, Obviously by Becky Albertalli
Synopsis:
Imogen Scott has questions…
Imogen Scott may be hopelessly heterosexual, but she’s got the World’s Greatest Ally title locked down. She’s never missed a Pride Alliance meeting. She knows more about queer media discourse than her very queer little sister. She even has two queer best friends: Gretchen, a fellow high school senior, who helps keep Imogen’s biases in check, and Lili — newly out and thriving with a cool squad of queer college friends.
Imogen’s thrilled for Lili. Any ally would be. And now that she’s finally visiting Lili on campus, she’s bringing her ally A game. Any support Lili needs, Imogen’s all in.
Even if that means bending the truth, just a little.
Like when Lili drops a tiny, queer bombshell: She’s told all her college friends that Imogen and Lili used to date. And none of them know that Imogen’s a raging hetero — not even Lili’s good friend Tessa.
Of course, the more time Imogen spends with chaotic, freckle-faced Tessa, the more she starts to wonder if her truth was ever all that straight to begin with….
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐.5/5
My Thoughts: This is a cute and charming story that I think a lot of queer people will relate to. At least, I related to a lot of Imogen’s struggle. I related to her comphet feelings and how she never seemed to feel queer enough on the outside to feel worthy of a queer label. I related to her not realizing moments from her childhood and teen years were actually queer until she really thought about them. Basically, Imogen’s insecurities before coming out mirrored many of my own insecurities before coming out.
One thing about the book I’m still wrestling with whether I liked or not is the treatment of its secondary characters. They were all very archetypal.
On one hand, keeping them so one-dimensional and straightforward works because we’re seeing the world through Imogen’s eyes and to her everyone else has figured themselves out completely while she’s still so unsure of herself. By making the other characters so rigidly defined it became so much more clear just how undefined Imogen was.
On the other hand, I would’ve liked if characters such as Tessa and Edie had more room to grow. Tessa cemented her place as my favorite character the moment she described herself as a “middle-child Jewish lesbian with ADHD” and I wanted to see more of her. I think Imogen could’ve been comforted seeing that the people around her are also growing and changing and unsure of themselves too. Everyone around Imogen is also almost too forgiving of her mistakes and there isn’t much inter-character conflict. Besides the one clear antagonist, the only real conflict occurs inside Imogen’s head.
Overall, I did enjoy this book and as I’ve continued to sit with it I relate more and more to Imogen. Even though (in the subset of queer fiction) there isn’t really a shortage of coming out stories, it isn’t common for those stories to center characters who didn’t even realize they were queer in the first place. But this one does. And that feels important.
You can buy Imogen, Obviously here or borrow it from your local library.
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