Reading: ONLY MOSTLY DEVASTATED - Sophie Gonzales

California teen Ollie is spending his pre-senior-year summer in North Carolina, where his family has temporarily relocated to help Ollie's Aunt Linda - who is fighting cancer - and her family. What Ollie didn't expect, beyond babysitting his aunt's kids, was a summer fling, which comes in the form of fellow high schooler Will Tavares, a hunky basketball player whom Ollie shares a blissful romance with. The end-of-summer goodbyes are painful, but even more painful is when Ollie learns his parents have rented a home in Aunt Linda's town indefinitely, and he will be spending his senior year in North Carolina away from his friends and having to adjust to a brand-new school, due to Aunt Linda's condition becoming worse. Biting the bullet, Ollie - openly-gay but with no idea how that may roll in NC - arrives guarded and edgy his first day for classes, but quickly meets a trio of girls who befriend him; so much so, he comes out to them and even shyly tells them about his summer romance (well, he was dying to tell someone!). One of the girls, Lara, invites Ollie to go with them to a back-to-school party that night at a friend's house ... where Ollie is shocked to find that Lara has actually set him up, for who else should be at that same party but Will! Will, along with a gaggle of Will's very hetero basketball team buddies, and when his summer love gives Ollie the cold shoulder it becomes obvious that Will is freaked (not happily so) by Ollie's presence as the newest kid in school ... and even more obvious that this year just might be more torturous for the broken-hearted Ollie than even he had ever dreamed. Only Mostly Devastated is a loose retelling of Grease that works very well on the page, largely due to its wonderful, endearing lead character; we've all felt Ollie's confusion and pain of first love, and writer Sophie Gonzales keeps his fresh, funny voice one that always (thankfully) falls short of becoming annoying or whiny. Openly-out Ollie's ups and downs with a closeted Will come across very authentic on the page, as does Will and the engaging supporting cast of characters that make up the boys's friends and family. The subplot of Aunt Linda's cancer plight and how Ollie deals with that as well pulls at the heartstrings without ever becoming maudlin or melodramatic. Best yet, when you think you know how and when things will develop with Ollie and Will, the book still manages a wholly believable, touching finale that may seem too pat for some but brought a tear to this jaded reader's eye. Wonderfully done, my only (very minor) complaint being the author's use of the occasional British word or phrase, in Ollie's voice (the book is told from his POV), that would throw me right out of the story by not sounding like a typical California/American teen's verbiage. That's a small bump-in-the-road, though, to a wonderful, humorous, and romantic love story whose main characters leap from the page to find a place in your heart.  4.5/5 stars

NOTE: I received a free ARC of this title from NetGalley and the publisher, in exchange for an honest review.