Review: "Amelia, if Only" by Becky Albertalli

Amelia, if Only by Becky Albertalli
Published June 2025 via HarperCollins
★★★★

Nothing says true love like a parasocial relationship with a semifamous YouTuber—or so Amelia figures. So they've never met in person and their only interaction was in the comments section...surely, if their lives overlapped, there'd be...well, not necessarily sparks. But maybe. There'd be a chance.

Oh, teenagers.*

You know going into an Albertalli book that it's going to be a fun romp, and this is no exception. The energy reminds me a little of Sophie Gonzales's The Perfect Guy Doesn't Exist—the way that, in Perfect Guy, Ivy writes this genuinely terrible fanfic and is perfectly okay with it (still my favourite thing about the book), while here, Amelia throws herself into appreciation of what sounds like a pretty (intentionally, as far as the book is concerned) mediocre YouTube channel and refuses to hear any criticism. It all feels very human, I guess; I love YA in which teenagers get to be average teenagers instead of award-winning prodigies or whatever.**

Anyway, cue a road trip with friends who are browbeaten into submission so that Amelia can finally, finally meet this guy in person. This is set in the same universe as Imogen, Obviously, so some of those characters pop up again, and it's nice to see how much of this is about friendship as much as it is about relationships. I think this is probably 3.5 stars for me—it's not likely to be one I'll return to—but I'm here for the chaotic energy and the lack of a true bad guy. (Do I think Amelia will last with her paramour? Not really. But it's YA, so it probably is eternal true love.) I wouldn't be sorry to see another book in this universe.

*I mean, I know adults who think this way too. So maybe it's more of an "oh, humanity"?

**I also love YA in which someone is a movie star or secretly a princess or goes to med school at sixteen (though in the latter case I usually end up shouting at the book). I'm like an onion, okay? Onions have layers.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.