Maisha Farzana 's Reviews > Ophelia After All

↠ An ode to the best Queer friend group of 2022.

“Being queer is hard enough. Don’t lock yourself out of all of this just because you’re scared you won’t fit in the keyhole, without even trying.”

"Ophelia After All" is a story of love, heartbreak, family and friendship. It is about the struggles we all face but still tend to overlook. A story of self discovery that I found spectacular and unparalleled. It would be a delightful and pleasant read for every YA reader out there.

In this admirable coming of age YA contemporary, we follow a 17 years old Cuban-Irish teen named Ophelia throughout her journey of self discovery. Ophelia is used to get crushes on every cute boy she comes across to. This happens so frequently that everyone calls her "boy crazy Ophelia". Ophelia has her senior year and senior prom planned since forever. But her plan starts crumbling down when she finds herself falling for a girl named Talia. She surprising discovers that she- "the boy crazy Ophelia"- has a crush on a girl. Add to that the problems in her once solid friend groups are spiraling a little out of control. High School life is full of drama. But what happens when the drama becomes too much to bear. Before Ophelia can even register what's happening, her entire life starts changing before her eyes....

The writing is really good. The prose is tender and accessible. I listened to the audiobook which is absolutely mind blowing. The narrator does an amazing job of bringing life into the characters. I would highly recommend both the book and the audiobook versions.

"Ophelia After All" is a stunningly gorgeous book about discovering who you are, finding your support systems, and learning to be okay with where you are on your own journey. Ophelia's struggle with finding her identity and coming in terms with her newly discovered sexual felt very genuine. All her life, Ophelia has always ‘fallen in love just a little bit every day with someone new’. To all her family and friends, Ophelia has always been ‘boy crazy Ophelia’, but when Ophelia realizes that she has a crush on one of the girls at school, this calls everything she knows about herself into question. Anybody would get frustrated in such situations. So, Ophelia's tantums and burst offs were understandable.

All the details and inner monologues were very much real and easily relatable. I personally didn't face such troubles with my sexuality. But still I could understand where Ophelia was coming from.

The novel is rich in secondary characters, all of whom learn and struggle together in a messy web of teenage friendships. Racquel Marie tells the story with such love and sympathy that the characters become real. I could actually sense them by my side. It was very very easy to be sympathize with them and love them.

Change is inevitable in life. You can't stay the same throughout your whole life. But we have to admit that changes are scary. We all, at some points of our lives, wonder if our loved ones would accept our changes, whether they would love the "new us" all the same. "Ophelia After All" says with so much gentleness and love - it’s okay to change, it’s okay to be unsure about who you are. The people who truly love you will always stay by your side, no matter what.

Other than narrating Ophelia's journey of self discovery, this book explores a lot of different themes of teenage life. The story also focuses on various problematic issues that prevails in our society. The novel offers a heartfelt tale about family, friendship and high school drama.

The friendships and family dynamics portrayed here are wonderful to say the least. The author brilliantly explores the ins and outs of different kinds of relationships. From Ophelia's relation with her parents to her friendship with each of her friends - everything is well done. The way she navigates her friendship troubles is incredibly well written. Disagreements and conflicts are a huge part of these relationships. Racquel bravely portrays them all without any filter. Both the dialogues and inner monologues are so raw and unfiltered that one have to marvel at their originality.

On thing I definitely have to say. This book is surprisingly honest to the high school experience. These days, it pretty hard to find books which present the reality of high school. Reading a realistic high school story once seemed like a dream. Racquel Marie has made our dream comes true. "Ophelia After All" offers a very genuine approach to the raw, messy and complicated high school life. There are unnecessary quarrels, dreamy crushes, hilarious pranks, cheesy acts, complex love triangles, romance, heartbreaks and many more....

The ending is a bit underwhelming. I don't know what I was expecting but the story just feels unfinished. The ending is a little rushed and sudden. This probably is my only complain about the book. But still it isn't bad. The whole book is way too good to be truth. So, it didn't mind even though the ending wasn't my favourite.

This book made me laugh out loud. This book made me cry. It had me on my toes. It broke me apart then gradually sewed up the broken pieces together again. In a word, reading this book, was an amazing experience.


｡☆✼★━━━━━━━━━━━━★✼☆｡

☆ Thanks to NetGalley and RB Media for providing an audiobook arc of this book in exchange for my honest review. All the opinions are my own.