Hazel & Katniss & Harry & Starr

Brenna and Joe put on a puffy prom dress and rent a tux for their first dip into male protagonist realist YA romance. Unfortunately they selected Steve Bloom's 2016 novel The Stand-In and Chris Nelson's 2019 Netflix adaptation The Perfect Date which not even current It-Boy Noah Centineo can save.The pair marvel at how badly written and problematic the book is, while acknowledging that it is one of the few texts to actually address wealth & income inequality. They then contrast it with the film, which has removed 95% of the book's problematic aspects, but in the process, has also been scrubbed clean of any and all interesting aspects, leaving behind only a bland and dull text. Also up for discussion is the hilariously bad father/son casting, the ineptness of Bloom's narrative plotting and the legitimate question of who is the target audience?In homework: Brenna is uncertain about whether The Fosters' spin-off, Good Trouble is worth pursuing, while Joe begrudgingly acknowledges the new KJ Apa YA film on Net