“Who’s ready to sparkle??
Project Runway goes to Comic Con in an epic queer love story about creativity, passion, and finding the courage to be your most authentic self.
Raffy has a passion for bedazzling. Not just bedazzling, but sewing, stitching, draping, pattern making–for creation. He’s always chosen his art over everything–and everyone–else and is determined to make his mark at this year’s biggest cosplay competition. If he can wow there, it could lead to sponsorship, then art school, and finally earning real respect for his work. There’s only one small problem… Raffy’s ex-boyfriend, Luca, is his main competition.
Raffy tried to make it work with Luca. They almost made the perfect team last year after serendipitously meeting in the rhinestone aisle at the local craft store–or at lea Raffy thought they did. But Luca’s insecurities and Raffy’s insistence on crafting perfection caused their relationship to crash and burn. Now, Raffy is after the perfect comeback, one that Luca can’t ruin.
But when Raffy is forced to partner with Luca on his most ambitious build yet, he’ll have to juggle unresolved feelings for the boy who broke his heart, and his own intense self-doubt, to get everything he’s ever wanted: choosing his art, his way.
This was such a cute book!
I couldn’t help smiling to myself through almost the entire story. It deals with some heavy topics, such as Raffy’s unhealthy relationship with his mother, and Luca’s struggles with coming out, but it does so in a way that is heartwarming and hopeful.
It is one of the rare instances where constant switching between time settings actually works as a narrative.
The book alternates chapters between the current cosplay contest where Luca and Raffy are competing with each other, and the arc of their relationship and breakup several months prior. I usually find that this sort of narrative structure doesn’t work as well as it ought to, except in rare instances such as We Used to Be Friends, but I actually really enjoyed it in this case. It was particularly effective because the “present” storyline takes place over a span of three days, while the “past” storyline takes place over the span of months, so it provides a good alternation of pace. It also allows the reader to learn more about Raffy and Luca’s history while simultaneously seeing more about their current actions towards each other. Overall, I found this narrative structure to be quite effective.
The characters were so compelling.
Raffy was an angel and I love him. He’s the sort of character that you’re constantly rooting for and who you just want to be happy. His passion for cosplay is contagious, and definitely the most interesting part of his character. He has anxiety, and he loves his work more than almost anything else. Although there were definitely portions where he was definitely in the wrong that aren’t really acknowledged as being, such as his resentment towards Luca for not wanting to come out and alienate himself to his family yet throughout the book, he is for the most part well-meaning and regretful of mistakes he makes.
Luca definitely had the most interesting character journey. His relationship with Raffy is complicated by his fears of coming out to his family, which are completely valid, and his struggles with those are realistically depicted. He’s a soccer player who is only really introduced to cosplay through his relationship with Raffy, and his growing love of it and his issues with embracing it because of his parents are compared with his worries about coming out in a very nuanced way that explores the intersection of society’s perceptions of queerness, gender norms, and “weird” hobbies like cosplaying and conventions.
The side characters were all so interesting and multi-dimensional too. May, Raffy’s best friend, is a visual artist who is Raffy’s partner at the competition because he doesn’t have anybody else to ask. She’s super fun, and her and Raffy’s friendship is very supportive; they each very much want what’s best for each other, and it’s definitely the healthiest relationship portrayed in the book. Other characters are less sympathetic, such as Evie, Raffy’s mother, whose treatment of him borders on abuse at some points, or Inaya, Raffy’s former friend who seems to care more about winning than about the effects that her competitiveness has on her relationships with her friends. All of the interactions between characters in this are nuanced and intriguing, and far more complex then those typically grappled with in YA contemporary reads.
It’s a love letter to the crafting community.
This book approaches all of the scenes where Raffy is creating with such love and appreciation. His enthusiasm for his work bleeds through, and can’t help but drag the reader along with him into the excitement of the creation of his cosplays. There’s also a lot of focus on art as a collaborative experience; from Raffy streaming his work on a Twitch-like platform, to collaborating with Luca on making costumes, to the entire set-up of the competition that the plot revolves around, it is never shown to be a solitary pursuit, but rather one that is about community.
It grapples with the idea of what counts as real art.
This isn’t a topic that is usually written about in books, but I find it very interesting, especially because I do a lot of art, a decent portion of which is fan art, which is often derided as “not real art.” Similarly, Raffy struggles with his mother’s dismissal of his cosplay, and her insistence that he turn in an artistic direction that she considers worthwhile. She is an artist and gallery director, and her idea of art seems to focus on eccentricity and uniqueness, and she views cosplay as mainstream, overly common, and unoriginal. She is constantly trying to make Raffy follow the path of the artists that she exhibits, actively disparaging his interests and pursuits at every turn. This struggle over what qualifies as “real art” is at the heart of the book.
Overall, I give this book 5/5 stars.
Be Dazzled, by Ryan La Silva, is a thoroughly enjoyable experience throughout. It balances a vast variety of nuanced issues into an utterly entertaining and thought-provoking story. The characters and their relationships are all multi-faceted and complex, allowing the book to address such issues as struggling with coming out, the notion of what “real art” entails, unhealthy parent-child relationships. However, these issues are all combined with a complete enthusiasm for creation, and Raffy’s passion for his work in cosplay, which make the book an ultimately uplifting and heartwarming story that balances the plethora of topics it is addressing into a cohesive and enthralling narrative.
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