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Hi I’m Hellen, I’d like to take you back to a moment without bias. It was The First Time I Met Gaby. I capitalize it because, this is a story. See, she was opening a live show at a very rundown bar in LA, on a busy street corner with busted up concrete sidewalks on the outside, and worn, wood-paneling on the inside. I didn’t know she was: Gaby, the Co-Author. Or Gaby, The YouTuber. I just knew that it was April. It was a Friday. And since I was there for someone else, she was just Gaby.
On stage, she caught me with her wit. She had a cutting love affair with the audience, a one-two-punch reserved for close knit friendships, or how your older brother talks to you. We were lulled into comfort then slapped in the face, lovingly. It’s like she touched our cheek first just to warn us. She spoke with the kind of mean edge that lets you know you are cared for, deeply.
In the pages, that cadence is woven into the fabric and delightfully stitched together with Allison Raskin’s self-deprecating jokes that are too real. Her honest misadventures that happen while living alongside big emotion are every mistake we’ve ever made in a relationship. She shows us her cards. And if you look, I’m sure you can find a pair in your own hand.
Together, they decidedly examined being queer, navigating mental health, and individual maturation. Tough topics for anyone—much less new authors and college freshman. They painfully rip apart the stitches they’ve sewn, while ferociously defending our right to never have to explain ourselves and our mess.
The main characters are Gen and Ava. Their story is told exclusively over texts and emails, commonly the substance of our own contemporary relationships. While they trip through their first year away from each other, you are cc’d. You are in the group chat. And I have a feeling that if you could reply all, the authors would write back.
The characters say all the wrong stuff that we we’re thinking, but never said out loud. The authors have dirt under their fingernails so you don’t have to. And even though we know Allison would recoil at the thought of this, her heart is in it and her manicure is scheduled. The hands of society can stay clean if we just read what they dug up.
I haven’t cried from a book since Charlotte’s Web circa 2001. They made me cry. They made me angry with them, angry at them. But I made up with them too. And laughed it off.
Am I biased? Absolutely. Because it was only for that one moment when I could look at this person objectively. Now I’ve read their book. And I’m on her team. I am the self-proclaimed biggest fan while shouldering for room at the top among a deep well of friends who respect her. As a team, they have chosen the underdog. Underrepresented. *Underseent*. Under the radar and in the closet. She is still just Gaby to me, but I got past the busted up sidewalk to the warmer interior.
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I must say. I had high expectations on this book. It was great. The style, the way the story was told was quick and easy and very detailed. I liked how it went from emails to text messages and you can really tell the emotions from both characters. I will say though that gen and Ava are great together but when apart are disasters but that's what makes them grow as a person. I understood the struggle but I connected more with Ava on a personal level. Overall an amazing book and I want a part 2!!!
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