Youngblood – Sasha Laurens

3.5 stars

Four words: Lesbian, Vampire, Boarding School

About Youngblood

Kat Finn has grown up her entire life isolated from other vampires, and hates it. Instead, it is just her and her mother living in Sacramento, California, barely scraping by to buy Hema, the blood substitute that they have to rely on because of the deadly disease running through humans, deadly to them, and even more to vampires. Kat realizes she can change all of that if she can just get into Harcote, the elite boarding school exclusively for vampires. Except, it’s incredibly expensive and offers no financial aid for potential students. So, when Kat secretly applies to the school against her mother’s wishes, she does not expect to be able to go because of her financial struggles. So when she receives an email telling her that she has got in and has her tuition paid for in-full by an anonymous benefactor, it’s a dream come true. Nothing can ruin it for her, not her mother’s disapproval or her roommate/ex-best friend. But sometimes, there is so much more at play than anyone could ever know?

Taylor Sanger has been forced to go to Harcote every year, despite how much she hates it. Everyone there lives in a white, heteronormative world, with their strict adherence to traditionalism. When some of your teachers are quite literally from another century, being the only openly queer student is extremely isolating. Her only friend on campus is the only other openly gay person on campus, who also happens to be her science teacher. The only other person who she talks to is her worst enemy who she is also hooking up with on the downlow, who she is going to be forced to room with. Instead, the infinitely worse possibility has happened, Evangeline has switched with none other than Kat Finn, the girl who she was in love with until she one day told her to never speak to her again. So, when both girls are dragged into something darker than they ever could have imagined, will they be able to work together, or will they go down in flames?

My Review:

Was this the greatest book in existence? Absolutely nowhere close. However, when you are starved for queer content that is not purely romance, your bar is very, very low. All I knew going into reading this book were the four words I wrote above. I was not ready for the rollercoaster that I was dragged into instead.

The Writing

This was, by far, the worst part of this book. But it was just good enough that it wasn’t unreadable. Instead, it gives fanfiction vibes, not great, but you’ll put up with it for the content. That’s all I really have to say because it was pretty mediocre, not terrible, but not great.

The Romance

When it came to the pacing of the romance, I will say that it was not my cup of tea. It felt too short to be a slow burn, but it was too long to be anywhere close to insta-love. I think Laurens was going for a “will they, won’t they” vibe with Kat and Taylor, but it was not drawn out enough. That being said, the romance and chemistry between the two of them was real. It was not some over dramatic romance novel level of chemistry. Instead, it felt like what falling in love as a teenager should feel like. It focuses far more on the idea of just being excited to be with each other and less on the “I want to have you right now” vibes of many romances. 

This was like a breath of fresh air. As an asexual person, simply having two people who want to be around each other is what is important to me, and it sometimes feels like that gets overlooked, even in Young Adult fiction. That being said, they’re still teeangers, and have their uh…teenage hormone moments.

Overall, it felt more real than a lot of romances out there. (That being said, I am about to reread the confession scene in Red White and Royal Blue, which goes against everything I just said.)

The Plot

No, the plot was not very original. Two girls find out people are assholes and that there’s something bad brewing at their school. Together they stop it. Nothing about that is original. Except this time, they’re also lesbians, and lesbians make everything better.

All jokes aside, the plot was interesting enough, and had enough twists and turns to keep me drawn into the story (I read the first 460ish pages in one day, (and then took another week and a half to read the last 40)). But like I said, the plot was rather predictable. While that normally makes me not like a book, it actually works well with this book. A large part of this book relies on the audience knowing that a character is making a bad decision, but watching them do it anyway. It’s predictability actually aids the story, especially when looking at it critically.

The Representation

It is always nice to read a queer book written by a queer person who understands the queer experience. Too often, a lot of the queer fantasy books are written by straight people (and no, I am not saying that they cannot write about queer people) who cannot understand what it is like to be a queer person. Some of the books that people (heterosexual people specifically) credit as “the best queer books” are written by openly straight people. Part of this is because when straight people write queer books, it is easier for other straight people to digest and relate to. But in that, the queer experience is not present in the book, and can alienate the queer audience by focusing on queerness for the heterosexual gaze. 

This book is the opposite of that. Every part of the book is infused with the queer experience, even if quite subtly. It is something that many queer people can relate to and understand, both from the perspective of still figuring it out and from being comfortable in your identity. 

“Not that any straight person would have described it that way, but they couldn’t hear the voice in my head that second-guessed and analyzed every little thing I did — or wanted to do. What were the consequences? Was it worth potentially getting hurt?”

~Sasha Laurens, Youngblood, 370-371

The Critical Analysis

(I’m keeping this short because it is already over a 1000 words)

It is easy to glance at this book and think about how this book is just a cliche plot, but with a lesbian romance thrown into the mix. Looking at it from that perspective takes a huge part of why I like this book. This book utilizes its predictability to illustrate how those with wealth and power are able to manipulate everyone around them. This book covers socioeconomic privilege and how COVID made it even more apparent. In the book, we see that those who have a lot of money are able to protect themselves against CFaD, while those without money have no choice but to endanger their lives if they want to be able to even have a chance at living. We see that with Kat’s father, who died from CFaD, because he was poor and had no choice but to risk feeding on a human, which cost him his life.

We see how not coming from a prestigious fang maker (basically family) impacts Kat’s life. She does not get the same support and opportunities as her classmates get from simply being born into the right family, and how they don’t even really realize the amount of luck and privilege that they have.

Harcote, the school itself, stands for that. Used as a high school equivalent of an Ivy league school, we see how financial privilege helps so many, and how it is tightly linked to racial privilege. The school says it’s for “The Best of the Best” but it is only for the best who can also afford to go to the school with its practically nonexistent financial aid. This further shows how simply being born into a well-known family can impact how society views them as “harder working” or “smarter,” just because they were able to afford to go to a certain school and have resources that most people do not have the ability to even consider.