Here’s to Us – Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera

~5 stars~

Before we talk about Here’s to Us, we need to talk about What if it’s Us. 

What if it’s Us is a split perspective romance about an impossible romance between two teenage boys who meet by chance in New York City. Arthur and Ben happen to run into each other while at a random post office in the city and strike up a conversation. Arthur is interning at a branch of his mother’s law firm for the summer, when he runs into Ben at the post office. Ben is at the post office to mail back his ex-boyfriends things after his ex cheated on him. While the two are talking, they are separated by a flash mob and Ben disappears. 

Arthur, ever the broadway fanboy, believes in the strength of the universe. There is no way the universe would make him run into his dream boy only for them to never see each other ever again. And thus begins his quest to find the post office boy after finding a part of his address label on the floor. After all, he’s in New York City, home to broadway, and the universe can make anything happen, even a broadway romance.

Ben does not believe in the power of the universe. He will continue living his life in New York City. However, he cannot stop thinking about the Post Office boy. On top of that, he is dealing with the heartbreak of breaking up with Hudson and how it broke up their friend group. Because that’s how it is, romance sucks and the universe is an asshole. No matter how much he liked “Post Office Arthur,” he will never see him again. Because that is how the universe works. Afterall, this is New York City, and you don’t run into cute boys that you meet on a random day in the Post Office.

The universe works in mysterious ways, and the two boys find their way to each other and begin a summer romance, until Arthur has to return home to Milton, Georgia and the two teenage boys agree that a long distance romance is not what they want or how they want to be together.

Flash forward two years, and we reach the beginning of Here’s to Us. The two of them spent most of those two years as friends, but act like they are even more, despite not being together. In the past few months, however, the two began to have a growing distance between them after Arthur began dating his boyfriend, Mickey, while at University. Ben finds it hard to hear anything about their relationship, and that is a huge point to their deteriorating friendship. However, Ben begins a friends-with-benefit, maybe relationship, with his own love-interest, Mario, who he met in his creative writing class. 

With both boys not talking to each other and living their own lives, with their own relationships, it seems impossible that the two would run into one another again. However, when Arthur gets an internship in an off-Broadway show, the two boys are going to be back in the same city for the first time in 2 years. Will the universe bring the two of them back together, or will they forever live their lives without each other?

I am not normally a fan of romance series, because I feel that they tend to purposely add in more drama for the sake of being able to write another book, and it ends up not feeling very natural and feels quite forced. This is nothing like that. The story flows together nicely and it makes sense. When I finished the first book, all I wanted was another book and Here’s to Us is the perfect sequel. Here’s to Us is a better book than What if it’s Us, in my opinion, and was worth the 2 year wait. 

I loved reading about them, and I could not put either of these books down. I feel bad for my roommate because she had to listen to me talk about this book for days because it was all that I could ever talk about. As much as I love the two of them, the two boys made me want to bang my head up against a wall, and I did throw the book across the room more than once. The book was full of “there’s no way that he still loves me” and awkward second-chance romance moments that you would expect from two of the most awkward boys ever. This book is the perfect second-chance romance between two teenagers, and I think everybody should read this series. 

This book is a happy ending about how, sometimes, the universe is on your side and it all works in the end.