The 99 Boyfriends of Micah Summers by Adam Sass
CW: Imposter Syndrome, Borderline Emotional Cheating, Underage, Homophobia, Cyber-Bullying, Panic Attacks, Cursing, Sexual Content (Fade-To-Black), Grief, Money Problems, Toxic Workplace, Past Death of a Parent, Classism
5/5
It was the beautiful cover by Kaitlin Yang that attracted me to The 99 Boyfriends of Micah Summers by Adam Sass. I get drawn in by pretty colors and drawings of characters. Sass describes the cover as "lo-fi", likely referring to the floating Polaroid look. The background is a gradient of purple and black while Micah sits in the foreground in front of pictures of his two love interests. There are a few other elements, but it's not a scene, it's a design. Although the cover had already drawn me in, it was the blurb that got me. I was rooting for Micah before I had even met him.
Micah Summers believes in fairy tales, at least the romance part of them. He uses his anonymous Instagram to post fairytale versions of all of his crushes. Now that there have been 99 of these sketches, he's hoping his next crush will be someone he gets the courage to ask out. When he has a meet-cute with a handsome nerd on the subway, he decides this is boy 100. As the boy has forgotten his designer jacket on the train car, it's up to Micah and his friends to track this boy down, whether it be for love or just to return the jacket. As the summer progresses, Micah learns that there might be some magic in the world, but people are real, not fairytale characters.
Print books don't always make a smooth transition to audiobooks and occasionally a book will be better suited to an audio experience, but The 99 Boyfriends of Micah Summers seriously impressed me. For a book so focused on art, I never felt lost on what something looked like. There were detailed image descriptions that managed to also convey the author's voice. I didn't even realize that there were pictures included until a hunch I had during the epilogue. I got lucky and found that the print copy wasn't checked out on Libby, so I borrowed it and scrolled through. I was treated to Micah's Instagram posts, drawn for the book by Anne Pomel! Thanks to the image descriptions, I had gotten the whole story without them, but I'm also very happy I had a chance to check them out.
Fairytales are an essential element to The 99 Boyfriends of Micah Summers. Cinderella was a major influence on the novel even though this wasn't an adaptation. There's a pumpkin carriage, Micah is a "prince" (you'll have to read the book to learn how), a main character has Tremaine as a last name, and an article of clothing gets left behind during the meet-cute. Having had a Cinderella phase in January, I was guaranteed to enjoy this, but it was more than that. Sass added some reality to the fairytale. Messy and hurt characters, teen struggles, frustrations of social media, etc. This balanced the book out between magical and relatable. Micah got to see his catchphrase pay off, "A weary world deserves a little dreaming."
On the topic of fairytale elements, Sass created a world with very little room for bigotry. The 99 Boyfriends of Micah Summers takes place in Chicago and uses some real locations. It doesn't pretend bigotry doesn't exist, but Sass doesn't make the characters and the audience deal with much of it. This is a realistic fiction romcom with the heart of a fairytale. People get happy endings and get to follow their dreams. We got to witness Micah having his first relationship, and the emotions and experiences that come with that. Despite the mess of a love triangle, there's definitely queer joy to be found throughout the story.
There's too much I want to say about Adam Sass's The 99 Boyfriends of Micah Summers. It was a sweet book that knew exactly what it was doing. Every last character was fleshed out, the fairytale concept was woven in beautifully, and the problems between characters felt realistic. If you choose to pick up this book, you'll get the messiest summer of Micah's life, but you'll both love it!
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