This group has been designated for adults age 18 or older. Please sign in and confirm your date of birth in your profile so we can verify your eligibility. You may opt to make your date of birth private.

From the Bookshelf of Between The Pages…

Jay's Gay Agenda

Jason June

Start date: June 1, 2022

Finish date: June 30, 2022

Discussion: 2022 Member's BOTM discussions

Discussion leader: Zitong Ren

Why we're reading this: June 2022 Member's BOTM…more
[close] June 2022 Member's BOTM

Find A Copy At

Libraries

Group Discussions About This Book

Showing 2 of 8 topics — 56 comments total

2022 Member's BOTM discussions

Dash and Lily Book Discussion
By Sylvs (NOVELt… · 1 post · 1 views

last updated Dec 07, 2022 04:43PM

Defy the Night Book Discussion
By Sylvs (NOVELt… · 11 posts · 4 views

last updated Nov 10, 2022 09:23PM

showing 2 of 2 topics view all »

What Members Thought

Jun 28, 2022 Sylvs (NOVELty Reads) rated it liked it · review of another edition

Read as part of Between The Pages June 2022 BOTM

I'm not gonna lie, I was very close to DNF'ing this book.

Don't get me wrong, from the first page I was thinking "wow, this book could turn out to be a newfound fave" but it started to go downhill for me with every thought Jay had of sex and losing his virginity as part of an unhealthy obsessive desire to "fit in" with the people around him.

Being a part of a country town as the only openly gay kid, Jay has always felt alone wishing to have the kind Read as part of Between The Pages June 2022 BOTM

I'm not gonna lie, I was very close to DNF'ing this book.

Don't get me wrong, from the first page I was thinking "wow, this book could turn out to be a newfound fave" but it started to go downhill for me with every thought Jay had of sex and losing his virginity as part of an unhealthy obsessive desire to "fit in" with the people around him.

Being a part of a country town as the only openly gay kid, Jay has always felt alone wishing to have the kinds of firsts that all his straight friends have around him such as first boyfriend, first kiss and first sex. Jay creates a list called "The Gay Agenda" to list off all the firsts he'd love to have or share with someone. When he finally moves out of Riverton to Seattle, he feels like a part of something with queer people surrounding him and calling him a friend. As he becomes obsessed with the possibility of his agenda finally being able to be crossed off, things start to get really messy as soon as other people and their feelings start getting involved as lie after lie becomes unravelled and Jay has to find out what it truly means to be authentically himself.

My main problem at the start was with Jay's characterisation. He seemed more focused on having sex than actually forming a connection or getting to know someone intimately as you would imagine would happen in a relationship. I started to get increasingly annoyed with him not just for his desire to no longer be a virgin but just his character voice as well as he narrated the story. I was around 100 pages into the book and I was considering to DNF but I persisted on...

And I'm so happy I had because the second half of the book (I'm referring to when Jay tried to make up for his lies and the mistakes he made) MADE the book hence why I decided to increase my rating by a star.

The book is all focused on messy relationships and making mistakes as one would expect during teenagehood. It's about realising when you're wrong and knowing when you have to make up for it. It's about staying true to who you are and realising what you really want. I loved exploring this with Jay as he started to question himself and if what he truly wants is something that's not actually on his Agenda list. I really enjoyed this aspect of the book, I loved seeing this journey of self discovery and self truths and I liked seeing how Jay grew and developed as a result of this. I think it was handled really well and it was definitely one of the greatest highlights of the story.

Another thing that I really enjoyed in this book was the connection between family and friends. I liked the connections between Max, Reese, Albert, the DigiGang, Lu, Cami and Damon and I loved every interaction they had with one another. It was so cute and I loved how Jay was really there for Max towards the end and supported Lu after his countless lies and when she needed him the most.

I also really liked the characterisation of Albert, it's not everyday I read a book about characters interested in the STEM field. He was such a sweetheart and was so patient with Jay and it hurts to know that Jay hurt him especially in the way he did. If the belief that stories continue beyond the last page is true then I hope they live happily ever after and are happy together.

Aside from characters and friendships, this book discusses stereotypes both in the racial sense and the sexuality sense. I thought this was a nice touch and handled well and respectfully. We also got discussions on heartbreak and grieving a long lost relationship. I really enjoyed the insight and glimpses into that and I felt like it unveiled a whole layer of characterisation. I reckon if we got more character layers like this into Jay's character specifically, he would feel more realistic and more personified than he did on the page.

That being said, this still was a good debut novel and I'm excited to read Jason June's future books including Out of the Blue which has recently been released. I'm waiting for my own copy to arrive since it's one of my most anticipated 2022 reads!

ACTUAL RATING: 3.2 STARS ...more

5 likes · Like · see review

Jul 17, 2021 anna ✩ rated it really liked it

4.5 stars!

This book was one of my most anticipated releases of 2021 because I could already foresee it was going to be YA gold. I was not wrong.

Jay Collier has felt lonely all his life, having been the only gay kid in his small town. So when Jay's family breaks the news that they are moving to Seattle, Jay sees this as his opportunity to experience the queer life he always wanted and deserved. He creates his own Gay Agenda full of things he hopes to one day experience. In Seattle, Jay finally ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Jun 11, 2021 Laura rated it it was amazing

4.5 Stars (rounded up to 5!)

Full RTC! 💚

1 like · Like · see review

Jun 03, 2022 Eileen rated it liked it

Shelves: 2022-ng-group-challenge, teen-young-adult, contemporary, 2022, audiobook, romance, lgbtq

3.5 stars

So there were some things I really liked about this book and other things that weren't great, including the repetitive list. I get that it was one of his quirks and he needed to make these lists, but listening to the narrator repeat the lists with "scratch that" multiple times just got a bit tiresome. I appreciated many of the discussions Jay had with others as he explored who he was, who he wanted to be, and what it meant to have a relationship with others, which seemed pretty nonexist 3.5 stars

So there were some things I really liked about this book and other things that weren't great, including the repetitive list. I get that it was one of his quirks and he needed to make these lists, but listening to the narrator repeat the lists with "scratch that" multiple times just got a bit tiresome. I appreciated many of the discussions Jay had with others as he explored who he was, who he wanted to be, and what it meant to have a relationship with others, which seemed pretty nonexistent, other than his relationship with his best friend. So I get that he didn't really have a lot of experience with navigating multiple friendships. However, I was not happy about him keeping things from his best friends, and outright lying to them, which led to so many people getting hurt. But even though he was 18, he was pretty young/immature for that age, and I think that was part of the point of the book. He spent 18 years essentially quashing a part of who he was, and that's going to stunt anyone's emotional growth! But I really liked how the book ended, and I think that was because Jay took responsibility for all the hurt that occurred from him lying to everyone. With all that Jay had grown up with and not having ANY folks on the lgbtqia+ spectrum to talk to, everything he learned was from being online, he needed to figure out what kind of person he wanted to be. Ultimately, my one big issue with him was lying to his friends. As Albert said, if he had just been open from the beginning, it would have been fine. I mean, Albert would have been hurt, maybe, but he wouldn't have felt betrayed. But ultimately he DID take responsibility for what he did and teens should definitely have the room to make mistakes and take responsibility or growth would never occur. I loved having an Asian love interest and I very much appreciated Albert speaking out about the frustrations of being a gay Asian man both in our country in general, but also in the gay community. I have loved ones who have experienced the same things and I loved this viewpoint being included. Plus Albert was such a sweet guy and a total catch! But I also loved Max, even if he made some mistakes of his own, in an effort to protect his heart. Overall, I ended up liking this book more as I continued reading, even if I could see Jay heading for disaster and the ending made it totally worth it. I'm glad I decided to give this book a chance and to keep on reading even when I wasn't really liking Jay at various points. ...more

Like · see review

Dec 20, 2021 Leo added it

dnf- kinda just sick of seeing it in my currently reading when i'm not reading it atm:/ i intend on finishing it eventually though ...more

Like · see review

Oct 12, 2020 Aidan Weber marked it as to-read

Mar 04, 2025 Courtney Perry rated it it was ok

Nov 02, 2020 Banseh marked it as to-read

Nov 02, 2020 Kate marked it as to-read

Nov 04, 2020 Lainy122 marked it as to-read

Shelves: tbr-lgbt

Nov 06, 2020 Bruna marked it as to-read

Jan 19, 2021 Ashley marked it as to-read

Shelves: 2021-releases

May 28, 2021 Shawna Finnigan marked it as to-read

Jun 03, 2021 Catherine marked it as to-read

Shelves: gay-books

Jun 04, 2021 Zoë marked it as to-read

Shelves: pride-month-reads

Jun 14, 2021 Lianne Anta rated it it was amazing

Jun 22, 2021 kirsty marked it as to-read

Oct 10, 2022 emilee rated it it was amazing

Group Home Bookshelf Discussions

Photos Videos

Send invite Members Polls