Review of Meet Cute Diary by Emery Lee

If you have been reading my reviews for a while, you’ll know I keep calling for more books with trans characters where the main focus is not on them coming out—or even on them being trans. So of course, I was very much interested in Meet Cute Diary, by Emery Lee. With multiple trans and queer characters, this book plays with some common romance tropes—like fake dating—while acknowledging the challenges these tropes, and romance in general, pose for trans people. Though at times uneven and flawed, this is an enjoyable young adult novel with good heart to it.

Noah is a teenager just starting his transition. His parents are in the process of uprooting him from everything he knew in Miami, Florida, to move to California for work. So he’s spending the summer in Denver, Colorado, where his brother attends university. Noah runs the Meet Cute Diary blog, where he posts stories ostensibly of meet cutes featuring trans youth. His dark secret? The diary is fake. None of the stories is real, and Noah himself has never been in a relationship! When an anonymous enemy starts exposing the diary’s duplicity, Noah determines the best course of action is to fake-date a cute boy he met in a bookstore. You know, like you do.

A lot of the reviews I’ve read pan Meet Cute Diary because Noah is a whiny or unlikeable protagonist. And, hey, I get it. He’s self-centred and is prone to making bad decisions. But he’s also still just a kid! Part of me wonders if we would be this hard on him if he were cis—that is, I think our hunger for more trans representation means we sometimes want all that representation to be “good” not just in terms of quality but in character. I, for one, love that Noah is messy and flawed. Even though I have never been attracted to someone or tried to date, I still see echoes of my youth in Noah’s behaviour. I know what it’s like, for example, to anxiously wonder if my best friend is mad at me because she hasn’t called or texted in days. (Maybe I am just telling on myself as being a bad person? I don’t know!) No, Noah isn’t likeable. Would I have liked a more likeable protagonist? Sure. But I think Lee has given us a realistic teenager (who happens to be trans), and I respect that.

Meet Cute Diary walks a fine line when it comes to being a book about being transgender. On the one hand, Noah’s transition is still fresh and sharp. He’s sensitive to it. The diary itself is obviously dedicated to trans people. On the other hand, Lee has done eir best to normalize Noah’s status. No one in this book makes a huge deal out of Noah being trans. Brian and Noah’s relationship is incredible, from Brian’s unwavering dedication to his younger brother to the way he is still willing to give Noah shit when Noah deserves it! Similarly, Devin’s questioning, the way e changes personal pronouns a couple of times, is slick and beautiful. There is some great praxis at work here.

Honestly, where the book lets me down is simply the fact that I’m not a romance girlie and things like the fake-dating trope just fall flat for me. To Lee’s credit, e tries to avert this trope (no spoilers though). Yet I feel like that complexity is undermined by the trite coincidences that crop up concerning Devin’s identity as well as the resolution and Devin’s destination. I respect the desire to provide, if not an HEA, then the possibility of one—but from the moment the penny dropped on who Devin is, I confess to allowing myself a single eye-roll before turning the page.

Meet Cute Diary is equal parts quirky and charming. It can be frustrating—the eponymous diary fades into the background for much of the story despite being built up as a big deal, though I admit I liked the resolution of its subplot. It can also be sweet—as seen with Noah and Brian, or even just with the way Noah navigates his feelings for Devin. Speaking as someone who continues to hold most romance at arm’s length, I respect how Lee tries eir best to use genre tropes while also deconstructing some of their more harmful manifestations. In this way, combined with the trans rep, this novel feels very fresh.