Review But How Are You Really

But How Are You Really by Ella Dawson is a queer second chance romance focused on Charlotte, a bisexual woman in a dead-end job attending her college reunion on a business trip. At the reunion, she is forced to face her cycle with abuse and her inability to ask for help all while falling in love with a former fling, Reece. 

 

The narrative starts with Charlotte settling in at campus for a weekend-long reunion that culminates in the new graduating class’s speaker address — which her boss, Roger, is speaking for. This turns what would be a normal weekend with friends into a work trip from hell, since Roger is an exacting man-baby who refuses to do any work himself, completely relying on Charlotte for the brunt of the work. Roger promises that if the weekend goes well, he will put in a recommendation for her to the design department, which she desperately wants so she can get out from under his thumb. Charlotte has approximately two days before Roger shows up, and in that time plans things with her friends. 

At the very first campus event, Charlotte runs into three of her exes: Nina, who she has entered into a completely platonic friendship with; Ben, her “big” ex who she is quite uneasy around; and Reece, the last person she sorta dated before graduation that she feels an inexplicable pull towards. Charlotte catches up with Reece and she apologizes for how things ended between them, which he is receptive to. They then make plans to spend time together during the weekend and narrowly avoid kissing. Reece and Charlotte end up at the same frat party and decide to play beer pong while reminiscing and flirting, which ultimately leads to them having sex at Charlotte’s dorm. 

Charlotte then has to juggle plans between her friend group and Reece. Every time Charlotte is with her friends though, somehow her job becomes a topic of conversation, and each time her best friend, Jackie, is making not-so-subtle comments about how Charlotte should leave and is being mistreated. This begins to cause cracks in their friendship, but they still make plans to go shopping together and go to an on-campus party after Charlotte hangs out with Reece at the lake. 

While Charlotte hangs out with Reece at the lake, she opens up more about how the relationship between her and Ben unfolded and why they broke up, citing Ben’s abusive behavior toward her and Jackie recording one of their interactions and replaying it to Charlotte as the catalyst for the break. She also explains how her mother was also abusive and contributed to why Charlotte stayed in the relationship, even explaining that her mother was so against Charlotte’s bi identity that she was furious when Charlotte broke up with Ben despite her knowing about his behavior. 

But How Are You Really has a few serious themes that resonate deeply given how human and realistic they unfold in the narrative. Biphobia is a very real and prevalent part of many people’s bi experience and the way it is portrayed feels very true to life

On her way to meet up with Jackie, Charlotte gets one more text in a line of dozens from Roger, this one telling her to write his speech for him, meaning she can no longer go shopping with Jackie. This angers Jackie and put the two somewhat on the outs for the rest of the weekend. However, Charlotte is able to finish the speech before the on-campus party and make it to the pre-game with her friend group where she meets up with Reece. 

The two spend most of the party together and, right before Charlotte can fully express her feelings for Reece, Ben shows up and insists on speaking to Charlotte. Charlotte ends up speaking to him despite not wanting to while Reece watches on, and after the interaction is over Charlotte experiences a panic attack that Reece tries to help her through. This triggers Charlotte to say that she doesn’t need nor want him and she leaves.  

After cooling down a bit, Charlotte doesn’t know how to face Reece again, feeling that him seeing her at such a low of reacting to her abusive ex in the way she did would make him not want to rekindle their romance, which Jackie immediately shuts down. Jackie encourages Charlotte to go and speak to Reece, and Charlotte ventures out to find him. 

On her way there, Charlotte sees Reece’s best friend who has hated her since college graduation struggling to go into the LGBT club at campus, and gently helps him inside to spend time with other queer people. She then meets Reece at his dorm to apologize, where they apologize to each other and spend the night. 

Reece often feels like he could be replaced with a therapist...or a blanket...and the narrative would remain the same

The next day, Roger is set to arrive but Charlotte’s utterly useless nepo-hire of an assistant doesn’t arrange for a car to pick him up, so Charlotte has to ask Reece to give her and Roger a ride to campus from the airport. On the ride back from the airport, Roger reveals that he gave the promotion he promised Charlotte for a good weekend to her nepo-hire assistant instead, saying that Charlotte hasn’t proven herself and would be easy to replace when Charlotte finally attempts to stand up for herself. 

This sparks an argument with Reece where he tries to convince her to leave her job and once again Charlotte defends her decision to stay, opting to go to the commencement speech and live tweet Roger’s address instead of going to the campus picnic. However, during the speech, Roger decides discard Charlotte's speech to say degrading things about her and the graduating class, which prompts Charlotte to live tweet that she’s quitting and leave to go to the picnic. 

When leaving for the picnic, Charlotte again bumps into Ben where he attempts to cow her into helping him advance his career. Charlotte finally stands up to Ben and continues to tell him no until he literally grabs her to trap her. Reece’s best friend shows up and gets Ben to leave and they make their way to the picnic together. There she makes up with Reece, they become an official couple, and Charlotte decides to accept help from her friend group while she gets back on her feet. 

My Thoughts & Review

But How Are You Really has a few serious themes that resonate deeply given how human and realistic they unfold in the narrative. Biphobia is a very real and prevalent part of many people’s bi experience and the way it is portrayed feels very true to life (as a bisexual myself). A lot of it is subtle, usually attempts to erase our identities. This is shown in how Charlotte’s mother wants to police her wardrobe to be more overtly feminine when she comes out, Ben slowly trying to convince Charlotte she doesn’t need the LGBT support group she was a part of because “she was with him now”, and Charlotte’s mother trying to convince Charlotte to stay with Ben simply because he’s male. Both of them were trying to control Charlotte’s identity and even shame her for it. It calls real attention to the issue in a way that does not feel in any way forced or irrelevant. It’s woven into the narrative quite well. 

The abuse cycle (both kinds) is also well depicted here. The cycle abusers take to keep their victims feeling trapped in the relationship is on clear display with how Charlotte explains her relationship with Ben; and the abuse cycle of victims continuing to find themselves in abusive relationships even after they feel that they’ve healed is also well handled. Charlotte felt that when she shed the influence of her abusive mother, and broke up with the abusive Ben that she would never end up in an abusive relationship ever again. But it’s clear to everyone around her that Roger is another abuser. 

When Charlotte doesn’t want to talk about her job, expresses that she can’t leave when she is forced to speak about it, cows to every one of Roger’s demands and makes herself small to avoid his wrath, she is actively reliving an abusive dynamic. However, even though Charlotte knows and understand the signs, it still takes her the entirety of the book to hear what everyone who loves her has been trying to tell her. It’s a very poignant depiction of the process of trying to break the cycle. 

Even the understanding of trauma responses when dealing with a trigger, like seeing and having to interact with an abuser, feels very true to life. The fawning to avoid more abuse, the panic attacks, the lashing out at loved ones — very real. It was like watching my own journey at times with how things were shown. However, while Dawson's depictions of trauma, healing, and abuse were shining moments for the book, the romance fell a bit flat for me and the representation of bisexuality, outside of just biphobia, felt lacking. 

Reece suffers a bit from the “sexy lamp” trope: the only real defining features he has is that Charlotte is attracted to him and he gives her space to process her trauma. He doesn’t feel like a fully fleshed out being with faults, motivations and traits of his own. This feels more and more common in female-led romance books and something I want to address in a future article, but the romance suffers for me because I feel like not only is Charlotte probably not ready for a romantic relationship at this moment in her life, but Reece often feels like he could be replaced with a therapist...or a blanket...and the narrative would remain the same. I'm all for cozy romances where the love interest is endlessly supportive, patient and kind, but if that's not accentuating their other personality traits and interests they don't feel like a real person.

Not to mention, Reece is too much of a blank canvas and seems to never actually be angry or frustrated with Charlotte, which is probably the least realistic part of the narrative. Anyone who loves someone going through such deeply-rooted trauma will tell you that there are times where even though you know why something is happening the process still frustrates and angers you. Not just because of the injustice done to your loved one, but because how said loved one chooses to deal with the trauma at hand. Having him actually get upset at Charlotte — EVER — would have made me like him a bit more. But, as it stands, I feel like the book would have been better as literary fiction instead of a romance. The romance aspect feels like a band aid on a bullet hole. 

Speaking of, the romance develops way too fast. The whole book happens over the course of a weekend, and by the end of it Charlotte and Reece are confessing that they love each other. It felt odd. I know that they were an item before this, but that relationship was very casual and they hadn’t seen each other for five years. Saying the big three words off of the strength of that relationship feels premature. 

Now we get into the bisexual representation. While the presentation of biphobia was very true-to-life, Charlotte’s bisexuality is often thrown to the wayside in a way that feels dismissive. When Charlotte’s relationships with women come up, they are as quickly described as they are forgotten. Charlotte’s most recent ex gets a fleeting mention, and Charlotte’s relationship with Nina is brushed off as almost an admiration/obsession that feels so distant she can barely remember what it felt like to love Nina. However, Charlotte’s relationships with men are given way more importance to the narrative, with Ben getting a decent amount of attention and Reece — who was an end-of-college fling — becoming the main love interest. This unequal treatment of Charlotte’s relationships feels like an oversight at best and straight up reinforcing stereotypes about bi women at worst. It feels like a huge opportunity missed to have at least one of the major romantic relationships in Charlotte’s current life be female or nonbinary. With both being men and the way the sapphic exes are treated, it feels like the narrative is covertly saying that bi women are basically straight or that sapphic relationships aren’t “real” relationships. Which, needless to say, is very uncomfortable. 

Another gripe I had was that apart from Jackie, Charlotte’s friends feel like filler, even though a big part of the narrative is Charlotte learning she can lean on them because they love her. This is also another issue some of these romance books seem to have that bothers me, but if a character could be omitted and have the story be the same, get rid of them! By the campus picnic at the end of the book there were still characters that I didn't even remember existed until then, characters that felt like they contributed nothing to the larger story, and some I literally said "who?" upon reading the names of. Even Nina, who is supposed to be a friend and former lover to Charlotte, feels underutilized and basically superfluous. It almost seemed like the only purpose she served was to "prove" the validity of Charlotte's sexuality.

The last thing worth mentioning is the action beats. There were times, like in the conversation between Roger and Charlotte in the car on the way to campus, where the descriptions of how Charlotte was feeling and coping were EXCESSIVE. Some conversations felt twice as long because every line of dialogue was punctuated by at least a paragraph of “my name is Charlotte Thorn...” and “feelings of insert color...”.  It was just too much and it bogged down the flow of the story. 

All things considered, I would give But How Are You Really 3 stars. The themes for the book are very well-handled and well done, but as a romance it doesn’t feel fleshed out or even necessary. However, because it was good read and I would recommend this book to you guys for the bigger themes it addresses, it gets a solid, mid-tier rating.