We Could Be So Good

Sometimes it’s a tightrope walk, you know? And it’s not fair that I have to be on the tightrope when other people just go for a stroll down the fucking sidewalk.

It's still early in the year, but I've got the feeling this is going to be my favorite book of 2024. This story just hit all the right notes for me. It's a perfect blend of so many of the tropes I adore: friends to lovers, roommates to lovers, workplace romance, mutual pining. The execution of the mix was so well done, too: the way their emotional proximity kept growing, how the closer they got the more they felt they had to hide while getting more and more open with each other. How they see certain things about each other so clearly, almost more so than they see certain things about themselves, but get hopelessly tangled with others until they get just the right nudge. How they both make each other not only happier, but better.

The characters are so alive on the page—not just Andy and Nick, but everyone who surrounds them. There was that cool feeling that the main leads were carving this bubble for themselves that was just for them two in many ways, but they wouldn't be able to do it if they weren't surrounded by other people along the way. People like Emily and her friends, but also people like Andy's father or Nick's big complicated family, despite the tumultuous relationships they had, and people like their coworkers, and all the other queer people in New York whose lives touched those only tangentially—through glances exchanged in the streets or articles in the newspapers. I'm an absolute sucker for deeply character-driven stories like this, and so many of Andy's and Nick's experiences and feelings resonated with me so much, too. From Andy's very obvious ADHD to Nick's struggled habit of concealing big parts of his identity, there was always something that made me go, "Yeah, been there."

There was also this very clear sense of place and historical period that I enjoyed a lot. So many scenes and locations were so vividly depicted that I almost felt I was watching a movie, and I'm not a super visual reader. Due to the realities of that time, there is a strong impact of period-appropriate homophobia, but in spite of it, there's a lot of queer joy and thriving to offset the angst, even if it has to happen under wraps. Especially since the wraps are coming down, what with all those small subplots about the articles or the increasing number of queer books reviewed by Nick's colleague—some of them even non-tragic.

If I had to nitpick, I could perhaps note how there were a few instances of the prose not being quite clear, or how maybe in a few places the intersections of character arcs and external plot evens could be tightened up. But I'm not in the mood to nitpick at all—I just loved the entire experience.  Honestly, I could go on and on about so many aspects of the story because it gave me All The Feels. Ultimately, it's a beautiful slice of life with so much heart, and I think I'll re-read it someday, even though there are so many books and so little time.

I love Cat Sebastian books. This is a historical romance set in a time period that I don’t often see – 1950s.

Nick is a gay man who has never known an out and happy gay relationship. He doesn’t think that that is a possibility for him. When he is drawn to Andy, he doesn’t want to acknowledge it because he doesn’t see a future. Andy also get engaged to a mutual friend who then breaks up with him. Quote:

"He’s so wrapped up in Nick that he almost forgets his own troubles, until one of Nick’s aunts points a fork at him and turns to the man sitting beside her. “His girlfriend left him for a heart doctor.” So now she speaks English?

The man looks appraisingly at Andy and shrugs. “A heart doctor, though,” he says in a tone that suggests that getting jilted in favor of cardiologists is all anyone can expect. That maybe Andy should have considered medical school if he didn’t want to get jilted. That Emily did what she had to do, because who could turn down a heart doctor?"

Nick and Andy get closer as Andy deals with the fallout of the breakup. Gradually they find other gay men and lesbians around them to serve as models for what a happy life can look like.

The book does a good job of depicting the fear of being found to be gay in the 1950s. Jobs weren’t safe. Violence and police harassment were the norm. How do you build a life in that environment?

I love this author’s dialogue.

Quote:

“There now,” Andy says, smoothing a Band-Aid across Nick’s temple, the pads of his fingers gentle. “Good as new.”

“Thanks,” Nick says, his voice a little rough. “Jorgensen would have let me bleed out.”

“Who gave you the first aid kit, you pair of ingrates?” the editor shouts.

“Back in his day they didn’t have Band-Aids,” Nick continues. “They just slapped mud on their wounds and went back to drawing the news on the walls of their caves.”

“I can still hear you,” Jorgensen says.

“It’s nice when the elderly keep their hearing,” Andy observes.

One of the recurring themes in the book is that in the media of the time, there were no happy endings for gay people. Nick has never read a book where the gay person didn’t die. He is given a book by a gay editor but he refuses to read another depressing book. Everyone tries to convince him that it isn’t like that. Quote:

"Anyway, the book ends up with one couple happily together. Not ecstatically happy, mind you, but England’s being blitzed, so that’s a factor."

This is a great love story with amazing period details. I rated this at 5 stars which I don’t do often. Definitely read this one.