Review: Camryn Garrett – Full Disclosure

Full Disclosure has been on my radar for months now, and it was one of my most anticipated releases of the year. So I emailed the publisher about the ARC, and I was lucky enough to get approved!

I absolutely love the cover of the UK ARC, as it’s so bold and sets the tone for this novel right away.

I received an ARC of this book from the publisher, in exchange for my honest review.

“Simone Garcia-Hampton is HIV positive…

…and is positive HIV won’t define her.”

Simone knows that celibacy is – technically – the best way to stay safe. Enter Miles Austin: intelligent, funny and way too sexy for Simone to resist. But her classmates don’t know that she’s HIV-positive – and what is the truth worth in the hands of the wrong person?

Rep: bisexual Black MC, gay parents (m/m), Black love interest, Black side character, Latinx side character, asexual lesbian side character, bisexual side character

CWs: blackmailing, hospitals, HIV, (internalized) biphobia, (internalized) racism, slutshaming

I will never not be impressed by teen authors. Camryn Garrett wrote this book at age 17, and you can definitely tell, in the best way possible, because this book feels so authentic. She captures what it feels like to be a teenager really well.

This book is about Simone, a teenage girl who was born HIV positive and has learned how to deal with that by taking her medication early in her life. Now, she feels ready to fall in love for the first time, because there’s a really cute boy Miles, participating in the school musical. But dating comes with some issues if you have HIV, because what if the dating leads to sex?

This book is off to a strong start right away, with Simone visiting a gynaecologist to ask questions about HIV and the possibilities of having safe sex. Overall, it’s a very sex-positive book, full of insightful and important educational aspects. This doesn’t necessarily make it a heavy read, though; it’s also an often funny romcom about a teenage girl directing the school musical and falling in love for the first time.

Simone is smart, and she’s mature in a lot of ways, partly because she’s forced to be, but she’s also very much a teenager who gets embarrassed by her parents and just wants to be like everyone else.

And this book is really diverse as well: most of the major characters are people of colour, and this book is also just… so very queer. Which I absolutely loved. Simone has gay parents, which is a specific type of representation I always love to see as it isn’t very common. Especially since this is a book where the parents actually play a big part in the main character’s life, for a change. And Simone herself is trying to figure out her sexuality, which just leaves her feeling very confused and thinking she’s probably not queer enough anyway, which is intensely relatable.

Another thing I loved, is Simone’s passion for musicals that keeps popping up throughout the book. I’m not even a big fan of musicals myself, but there’s something about people being passionate about their favourite things that is really infectious, and this book has me wanting to watch all the musicals.