Lose You to Find Me by Erik J. Brown Review

A romantic, heartfelt, and hilarious queer coming-of-age story from All That's Left in the World author Erik J. Brown, perfect for fans of What If It’s Us and If This Gets Out.
 

Tommy Dees is in the weeds—restaurant speak for beyond overwhelmed. He’s been working as a server at Sunset Estates retirement community to get the experience he needs to attend one of the best culinary schools in the world. And to make his application shine, he also needs a letter of recommendation from his sadistic manager. But in exchange for the letter, Tommy has to meet three conditions—including training the new hire.
 

What he doesn’t expect is for the newbie to be an old crush: Gabe, with the dimples and kind heart, who Tommy fell for during summer camp at age ten and then never saw again. Unfortunately, Gabe doesn’t remember Tommy at all. The training proves distracting as old feelings resurface, and the universe seems to be conspiring against them.
 

With the application deadline looming and Gabe on his mind, Tommy is determined to keep it all together—but what if life isn’t meant to follow a recipe?

Erik J. Brown’s sophomore YA novel following his heartwarming post-apocalyptic coming of age debut All That’s Left In the World, on the surface Lose You to Find Me appears to be an entirely different kind of book considering the very different genre and relationship dynamics of its main characters. I previously reviewed and loved All That’s Left In the World and while Lose You to Find Me wasn’t originally on my to-be-read radar, I was intrigued and interested to see if Brown’s excellent character work and relatable writing in a more straight-forward (get the pun) m/m coming of age story without the survival adventure angle would be as successful. To be honest, I went in with tempered expectations due to how negative some of the reviewers for this novel were, but I was relieved to find that yes, Erik J. Brown is a fantastic YA author who is far more well-rounded than I expected. Leaning more into the comedy aspect of what Brown himself dubs “Rom-Dramedy” while still having dramatic and occasionally romantic moments, this novel certainly has a different flavor and character narration voice from his first novel, along with different themes and focus. However, do not listen to the negative reviews for this book, the vast majority of them misunderstanding what this novel is about or being too hyper-fixated on purposefully designed characters flaws that are deemed “problematic” (when did the internet get so sensitive these days). Full of colorful characters, entertaining banter, relatable coming of age themes, and a perfectly crafted and paced plot, Lose You to Find Me is a wonderful all-arounder that hits all the right YA beats and kept me grinning the entire time.

Before getting into my actual review, there are two important points to highlight that address nearly every negative review I’ve seen so far for this novel. Firstly, despite many platforms like Goodreads tagging this novel as “Romance”, it cannot be understated that Lose You to Find Me is NOT intended to be a standard romance novel. While there is certainly a lot of dating and romance involved, to be expected given the premise involves Tommy forced to train his schoolboy crush on the job, the romance is not the main focus and end goal. Whether it be due to marketing decisions or to match the cover art designs, this book should be tagged as a “Coming of Age” first. The main focus of the story is about Tommy figuring out his future aspirations cooking and baking, along with his friends, coworkers, and relationship woes in-between. The book comes off like Love Simon, Three Months, or Booksmart that focus on the characters young lives, rather than their specific romantic interest or relationship. Given that Tommy’s romance isn’t the main selling point, readers cannot expect Gabe’s character and presence to carry half the novel and their complicated relationship developments should not be expected to follow the usual romance check points and resolution (Gabe is supposed to be a flawed character by design for both narrative and character growth purposes). Secondly a minor spoiler, but this novel’s story and premise does involve crushing on and mild cheating (nothing more than kissing) with someone in a relationship. If that topic is a deal-breaker regardless of how limited it is, I would recommend not reading this book. That being said, Lose You to Find Me is nowhere near what I consider a “home-wrecking” type of book. Unlike regular romance novels that use this element to generate conflict and misunderstandings or to add spice to the story, Erik J. Brown utilizes this element in a very classy and clean way (this is a YA novel, you shouldn’t be expecting spice in here to begin with). Again, since this is a coming-of-age story, this is used entirely as a catalyst for character growth and thematic purpose. Reviews that criticize the story for being sketchy or sus clearly have never read an actual trashy or home-wrecking story for comparison. These two recurring points in so many reviews are actually crazy to me and the readers clearly missed the thematic takeaway messages or are delusional to think that everything in fictional stories needs to be morally just and perfect (again, coming of age story not romance story, the characters have to fail and learn from their mistakes, that’s why the story is so relatable for teenagers).

My intense frustration with ridiculous sensitive readers and their reviews aside, I was skeptical if I would like Lose You to Find Me as on paper, coming-of-age novels tend to tire me. Excessive teenage angst given the characters ages, immature characters with silly conflicts that could be solved by just having a proper conversation, obviously bad decisions made with dramatic repercussions, this old man is already tired. And to be sure, this novel certainly has a bit of teenage angst and a few drama-story lines per its genre that made me feel old and tired on occasion. However, the vast majority of the rest of the novel and Tommy’s story I thought was skillfully balanced and plotted very effectively. Brown is very smart with the plotting and character logic, largely avoiding unnecessary angst and coming up with clever conflicts that minimally rely on basic miscommunication. Apart from smiling and chuckling to myself, I constantly found myself noticing all the common pitfalls or cliched drama tropes that Brown writes around to avoid or twists them in a new way to make them feel fresh.

Similar to Brown’s first novel, the character work is also consistently strong here and Tommy is a really entertaining main character and narrator that feels completely different from both Andrew and Jamie before. And unlike his previous two protagonists in All That’s Left in The World, Tommy and Gabe are much more flawed. However, that is not necessarily a bad thing, and in fact makes them far more relatable (if we’re all being honest here, I’m sure most of us have tried to chase someone that wasn’t emotionally or physically available, I sure have). These characters have times where they act petty, try and manipulate the situation in their favor, or take round-about approaches via friends because that’s what typical teenagers do.

These flaws also directly play into their complicated relationship that involves Tommy’s childhood crush and obsession, as well as figuring out where they stand in their senior year before graduation. While Tommy is pinning for Gabe who may or may not be interested back (and potentially not available), he also has a recurring down-low hook-up with Brad, a hockey team classmate who’s still in the closet. While Tommy and Gabe go through some of the expected moments of an awkward reunion, to being friends, to both being gay and out friends, to an interest beyond that, it’s the back-half of the story and the direction that Brown takes their relationship and character growth that sets this novel apart, clearly showing its ambition and intent to be more than just a cute high-school romance-themed story. Not only that, while the romantic relationships featured are certainly not healthy and have red flags everywhere, they’re done with full narrative purpose and serve as learning moments for the characters involved and for younger readers. And while certain couples are certainly quite “toxic” in theory, the writing and portrayal is still very clean and far from what I would even consider being trigger-worthy as Brown does a really great job displaying them in the most comfortable and gentle way. While it would’ve been very easy to have character suffer abuse, hard betrayal, or utter heartbreak, time and time again Brown surprised me at how the takeaway message can still be delivered without being excessive or narratively lazy. The story also consciously avoids the common trope of making gay characters miserable merely for being gay, outed, or being poorly received by family and comes up with more compelling material. In fact, similar to Heartstopper, Brown often plays off the reader’s worst worries and expectations, then takes a different and unexpectedly hopeful path.

Outside of the romance angle, the vast majority of Lose You to Find Me‘s narrative coming of age heft comes from themes involving the following life according to plan, finding oneself and what makes you happy, and the understanding that people and goals change and that’s okay. Aside from the obvious difference between Tommy’s idealized memory and image of Gabe as ten-year-old summer campers to Gabe as a grown-up teenager, the story also applies that same theme to Tommy’s professional and collegiate pursuits as well as those of his best friend Ava. Along the way, it’s also revealed that Tommy’s love and interest for cooking and baking can also be attributed to his father who had once enrolling in, yet was unable to complete his dream of a culinary arts degree prior to his death. While Lose You to Find Me is quite humorous and light-hearted, Brown does not shy away from touching on more heartfelt topics such as Tommy’s loss and memories of his father (a closing paragraph involving Thanksgiving turkey leftovers will definitely yank at the heartstrings). The major conflict and fight Tommy has with Ava is also directly related to the story’s underlying themes, a classy approach compared to where most other stories would have them fight over Tommy’s unhealthy chasing of Gabe or the “best friend giving advice that the main character doesn’t want to hear” (in fact, Brown’s take could be considered nearly the reverse of that). And while seemingly have everything made for him, Gabe’s luck is balanced out by his less than supportive family, rocky past relationships, and his struggle to also choose a life and direction that goes against the plan previously made for him.

Breaking the story down further to its premise, there are certain aspects of the story that are so unique for the genre yet feel so well-researched and experienced. Brown’s author’s notes explain that he had a similar high school job working at a senior living center, but the idea of having an aspiring high school chef serving and working in this kind of environment is so unusual, yet very refreshing and it fully works! I do quite a bit of regulatory work in senior care centers myself for my irl day job and I found the idea very entertaining, clever, and honestly quite accurately presented. The lack of raw/undercooked food items, OSHA requirements, attempting to meet every resident request (this is more of a hospice thing usually vs a senior living center but close enough), not to mention the staging and seating and resident events, it’s all represented and portrayed realistically! The work environment setting also allows for the novel to add a lot of silly/snarky senior citizen humor to the story (residents Al and Willa are national treasures) while also providing very brief conservative Republican fodder material played entirely for laughs (but tastefully of course per Brown’s balanced and always presentable style). And although the story covers all the characters’ high school summer break before the senior year through their graduation, the decision to place nearly all the story within Sunset Estates center is a really nice change of pace for the genre rather than covering the monotony and overdone high school material. Apart from brief school scenes involving the yearbook club and the hockey team, both included to give context to some of Tommy’s friends/coworkers as well as his recurring hookup Brad, you can almost forget it’s a high school set story if not for the constant talks and worries about college and their futures.

Spoilers covering the back-half and ending (can be skipped but is an important factor for why I rated this novel 5-stars):

Note: This review is written largely spoiler free, checkout the full version of this review with hidden spoiler tags on my reading blog TheBookGrind!

Post-spoilers and satisfaction with the ending, I thought Lose You to Find Me was an excellent YA coming of age novel that seamlessly incorporates comedy, romance, and drama into a fun and wholesome package. While teen romcom/coming of age movies have kind of gone out of style in recent years, this novel felt a modern m/m take on those fun teen movies rather than most modern romance novels. While those that choose to read this novel specifically for the romance may find this lacking (the romance is not guaranteed or predictable like All That’s Left in the World), those looking for a great YA read or coming of age story will find a lot to love and will likely be surprised by its clever ending. Brown is currently two for two with a pair of rare 5-star reviews from me, the man is an excellent YA author, and I can’t wait to read what he publishes next.