Blog Tour Stop: The Book Addict Interviews Seth from I Loved You First

After reading I Loved You First, I had a lot of questions for Alex's best friend, Seth. 

Sports:
BA: I know you like sports, what are your favorite teams?
Seth: My dad's first cousin, Bob, was a huge Mets fan, still is, but didn't have any girls. As soon as I was able to swing a plastic bat, he started dragging me to the games. I guess the team kind of grew on me. Now Bob gets us season tickets.
Football? Keep this one on the low down, but I'm big into the Patriots. Tom Brady, yeah? That's about it. Basketball is a bit fast for me. No time to savor a victory after a score. And then Alex wants me to give Hockey a shot. Seems like the guys on the ice like to rough it up though. That's not my thing.


BA: What is your earliest memory of playing baseball?
Seth: Does t-ball count?


BA: What was your favorite position to play when you were in little league?
Seth: I had a lot of fun as the catcher. Everyone wanted to be the catcher because of the gear. Seems like we got a shot at every position back then. I settled into short stop though. It works for me.

Childhood:
BA: What was your favorite subject in school?
Seth: Science. Would you believe we didn't get to blow up anything in chemistry?


BA: What did you want to be when you grew up?
Seth: A pilot. I even managed to get in a few hours of flight time as part of my high school senior project. Cool stuff.

BA: What was your favorite food?
Seth: Pepperoni Pizza

BA: What was your favorite color?
Seth: Blue

College:
BA: Where do you plan to transfer to?
Seth: I didn't finish the first semester, so I really don't have much to transfer. I'll probably hit the community college until I figure things out.

BA: What do you want to study in college?
Seth: Aerospace engineer. Hopefully, the US will keep the space program running.


BA: What career would you like to do after college?
Seth: Astronaut. With all the bull happening in Washington, who knows how that'll work out.

Personal:
BA: Knowing what you know now, do you wish you had come out earlier to your friends (not including Alex) and family?
Seth:  Yes and no. Life would have turned out differently, for sure, and I could have avoided a lot of the bull. I get the feeling my baseball streak would have ended a lot sooner if I had though.

BA: Where do you see your relationship with Alex going? Do you think you will still be BFFs in 5 years or 10 years? Do you think you will drift further apart now that you are at different schools?
Seth: I don't know. I never thought things would turn out the way they did with Alex. We'll always be friends, for sure. Our parents still get together, so I know I'll see her when we're both home.
And I'm not in school right now. I missed the enrollment periods by miles. Eventually, we'd have to get jobs anyway. And I doubt we'd work at the same place. We do what we have to do, yeah?

I want to thank Seth and Reena Jacobs for stopping by to chat with me today.  I hope you all enjoyed our interview as much as I did.

The Book Addict Reviews: I Loved You First by Reena Jacobs (Blog Tour Stop Coming Soon!)

Genre: Young Adult, Friendship
Order Online: Amazon.com
Author Info: Website | Goodreads
Rating: 3 stars
Book provided by the author in exchange for an honest review.

In A Nutshell:
The expectations I had after first reading the description of I Loved You First did not at all prepare me for what I got out of this story. I thought I Loved You First would explore friendship, but it explores more aspects of friendship than I expected. I expected a story where one friend had fallen in love with the other friend and a story where one friend was hiding his true self from the world.  I was surprised to see the story explore a friendship where one friend lost her sense of self.

Review:
What do you do when you fall in love with your best friend?  There is no easy answer.  Reena Jacobs adds another dimension to this question by asking what can Alex do when she falls in love with Seth, her best friend who is gay. 

Overall, I enjoyed the story.  I felt a connection to the characters, which I think had a lot to do with the way that Reena Jacobs incorporated the character's thoughts, motives, and reasoning into the story.  For instance, Seth's desire to hide his sexuality makes a lot more sense when he explains how he fears it would have affected his experience with the baseball team.  There was no easy answer for his situation--honesty could have led him to be ostracized in high school the way he was ostracized at the university.  However, it could be asked if he would have been ostracized in the same way if his sexuality had been revealed in a different way at the university. 

But Alex's question stuck with me the most.  At what point does a friendship become too much--too consuming?  When does a friend start losing him or herself in the friendship?  Is it a good thing or not?  What I liked the most was that Reena Jacobs does not give us the answer.  It is something that we as readers can discuss, can analyze, but the answer is not handed us in the story.  The ending is complex--not completely happy and not completely sad.  It is realistic.  It is honest.  And it left me with a lot to think about.  


Recommendations:
Usually, I recommend books that I think are similar to the book I have reviewed.  But today I am going to announce my participation in my first blog tour!!  I will be interviewing Seth--so if you have questions you would like to ask him please do not hesitate to let me know!