Date Me, Bryson Keller: TikTok made me buy it!

Product Information

That was what was important to me for Kai and why it resonated so much. I was able to tap into my lived experience because, in a sense, that was what I went through as a teen. So it was easy to translate that into this fictional world. Granted Kai is from the States, I've never been, so it was easy to find moments where that could translate into his world.

I was able to tap into my lived experience because, in a sense, that was what I went through as a teen. I thought a day of this nature would only make sense in that environment, because in a public school I don't think it would matter that much. But rich people are weird, and I think it invited the potential for this story to unfold. The more time they spend being fake boyfriends, Kai realizes there’s so much more to Bryson than he thought. And even though he knows Bryson is straight and this whole fake relationship thing is just for fun, Kai starts falling for him. But a little piece of him can’t help but wonder. Is Bryson straight? Is it just for fun? MC: Definitely. What was it that inspired you to write this story? I know in your author's note you mentioned that so much of your personal life and your personal lived experiences made their way into the story. I'm curious, how many bits and pieces made it in? This is a school dare and every girl in dying to date Bryson, but with just a few weeks left in the semester, Kai unexpectedly asks Bryson to date him. Bryson agrees and HERE IT BEGINS.Bryson Keller is captain of the soccer team at Fairvale Academy and the most popular guy in the senior class. He’s never really dated anyone because he isn’t sure he believes in love, and he's afraid of hurting people. What If It’s Us meets To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before in this upbeat and heartfelt boy-meets-boy romance that feels like a modern twist on a ’90s rom-com! KVW: With Bryson Keller, it was first love, whereas with this one, the main character has already been in a relationship, so he's moved on. So it's like, though it's not the big wow of first love, it's another aspect of it. So that's been a fun relationship to explore. And I'm also a fan of friends to lovers, so yay tropes.

The most significant weakness, for me, was the nature of the big crisis near the end. There’s simply no way that particular action could have happened outside the realm of adult supervision. I couldn’t suspend disbelief, and I was sad to see the story stumble that late in the game. Still, overall this was a treat, and it made me glad I hadn't given up on reading contemporary YA, like I’ve so often sworn I would do. Have you ever seen a movie or a tv show where there are two people (like two girls or two boys) and there is this sexual tension everybody probably feels between them? There are a lot of complaints I could make about the story itself: Bad dialogue ran rampant. The boyfriend was ‘too perfect’– definitely one we might dream up, but can’t exist. The flow of the story was choppy. The narrative too simple most of the time, the majority of the characters 1-dimensional... This author, when trying to justify plagiarizing Takarai's premise, stated that "There were themes that I wanted to explore in a western setting and as an own voices writer." KVW: Again, thank you to my editor, I keep saying. I remember in one of our first conversations, I was like, "I tried my best with the American stuff, but I'll definitely need your insight on that." And thankfully we got a sensitivity reader who's a queer American, so that also helped get the details right. Just to make sure that it felt authentic to an American teen. But my second book is set in South Africa, that's also exciting.

KVW: It's a side of ridiculousness that's probably never going to happen in real life, but it's fun to imagine if it would. KVW: Yes, that was important to me. Right off the bat, I was glad that... Actually, what happened was, my audiobook producer sent me a list of potential narrators, and he recommended Vikas. And he said he doesn't usually, but having read the book and knowing the narrator, that he would be a perfect match. And when I first heard his audition, I was like, "Yeah, that's Kai, that's who I want to tell the story." So it was a perfect blend of everything.

Becoming the Mask: Bryson was pretend-dating Kai like he usually does with the girls who initiated The Bet until he gained actual romantic feelings for him and ended up dating for real. This was a read-in-one-night kind of book—which are far and few between for me these days, and subsequently deserves all the stars for entertaining me so completely. Their interactions were everything and on multiple occasions I found myself laughing alongside them and deeply caring for these two young boys. This isn't because of the similarities between Date Me, Bryson Keller, and Seven Days -a manga I read before reading this. I think what the author said was true: he took the idea of "dating for a week" thing, everything else is quite different. Still, it doesn't sit well with me that the author took this idea completely and the authors of Seven Days barely got a mention in his book. Like sure, the execution was different, but just how literally can you take an idea? Because it's different to say "fake-dating" and "we are fake-dating for a week exactly and the entire school knows about this dare". So. Yeah-uhm. Not a fan.He does that to other people as well. He has a crush on a boy whom he never really talked to and knows nothing about. (Which is the nature of crushes, of course.) And the whole time he just assumes that said boy is straight. Because straight is the default and people can ever only be straight or gay, right? He actually gets called out on it, but then just keeps doing it for the rest of the book. KVW: Thank you. It's been a weird experience. Writing is just you and your computer, you're isolated, and having the book out and having readers actually read what you've written is such a… I don't actually know how to describe that experience. It's taking some time to get used to, but it's exciting… Actually, I today woke up to a message from a reader who said… there's one scene in the book where Kai's mother finds the strip of photos with him and Bryson, and that leads to that big confrontation. Oh, and all this in the span of three days. (The whole books takes two weeks, so we don’t have a lot of time.) The tone is very preachy, as mentioned before, but also basic and not nuanced at all; sounds more like an adult telling the story. The most important part of writing YA books is nailing down teens’ voice and this book failed at that miserably. It’s cringy and embarrassing, and takes a lot of effort to get through. That Steve Buscemi “How do you do, fellow kids?” meme? That’s exactly this book’s energy. One night at a party his classmates come up with a dare: he has to date the first person who asks him out each week. They're to date Monday-Friday, then when the next week rolls around, he'll date someone new. If he falls in love or says no at some point over the three-month period, he has to ride the bus to school. It becomes quite a contest, and soon every girl wants to ask Bryson out.