Book Review: Meet Cute Diary by Emery Lee

‘Meet Cute Diary’ was author, Emery Lee (ey/em)’s debut novel. It was released in 2021. The story follows sixteen-year-old Noah as he spends the summer with his older brother, Brian in Denver, Colorado. Noah utilises a cross-country move to California to be his true self after coming out as transgender, inspired by a trans girl who came out at his school.

The story focuses on Noah’s frantic attempt to keep the blog alive, especially considering the fact that a troll has appeared to debunk the fiction that Noah has been writing to inspire trans people to believe in and fall in love. When the troll instigated a downward spiral of Tumblr followers, Noah is desperate to halt the spiral. So, after a meet cute with a guy, who was a follower of the diary, Noah is on the cusp of ruin, until the follower offers a solution: fake date.

Lee’s character voice is stellar. I loved how Noah subtly changes he acts through the story. How he loses control of himself, his craft etc. and develops a greater understanding of his selfishness, when the shoe is on the other foot.

In order to cope with his dysphoria and fear of rejection being a trans man, and created a Tumblr blog called the Meet Cute Diary.

I absolutely adored the book and how it navigates the concept of the way that the internet is an absolute Hellscape, filled with accusations, false claims about authenticity, content theft etc. and that cancel culture can run rampant on social media, because random ordinary people can’t retain the same content schedule when their circumstances change. It offers readers a space to reflect on their own online toxicity.

I loved the way Lee navigates gender in this book, and how Noah and Devin and bond over their experiences as trans people. I liked that Lee offered insight into pronouns and transness, and the way trans people may trust friends with pronoun changes before testing them out publicly. I was very happy to see Lee include neo-pronouns in Devin’s attempt in finding out which pronouns best suit em. Lee jumps from the different pronouns swiftly and it was so positive.

There were so many lovely elements in this story, for example, how the two different relationships unfold. Devin and Noah have an anti-meet cute, where their introduction comes in with vomit incident on Devin’s part. Meanwhile, Drew and Noah had the ultimate meet cute, where they met at an ice cream shop and then meet again in a book shop!

I really liked how each of those relationships fall into place. Devin is a great character and their friendship, turn relationship was fantastic. I loved how authentic the fallout of Devin and Noah’s comradery was so relaxed and funny. There is so many fun moments and gorgeous dialogue. It’s been really positive and uplifting. I absolutely lost it at the vanilla latte metaphor.

This book was amazing, and so much fun to read. I’d really recommend it!