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Remedied: Volume 1: Barriers to Their Truths
This debut coming of age novel follows the story of a gay teenager in Nevada, curious to a fault and coming to terms with the way mental illness affects his life.
Oliver Quinn doesn’t want a tutor— after having grown up scared of everything, along with all the bullying at school, he doesn’t want to deal with yet another person being handed a reason to judge him. But his tutor turns out to be Alexander Rayes, a boy he’s had a crush on since his freshman year. So he figures that it can’t be all that bad, and that maybe it’s actually a virtue.
Throughout the course of his junior year, Oliver experiences a lot of firsts. More specifically, he experiences falling in love with someone who might be a little more complicated than he’d initially thought. And with the responsibility of falling in love comes the responsibility of growing up, something Oliver isn’t quite sure he’s ready for.
As Alex grieves the loss of his father and Oliver tries to understand what he doesn’t know in such a way that makes it almost detrimental to his health, the two find comfort and understanding in each other. With the hope of helping his boyfriend with something he doesn’t want to admit to, Alex slowly reveals his past, though barely sating Oliver’s need to know everything out of his fear of the unknown. Through these revelations, Oliver learns that you can’t save somebody, you can only love them, but nevertheless, he tries.
Realistic and relatable, Remedied is based on the struggle of being a mentally ill, gay teenager in high school. Similar to other LGBTQ novels such as Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli and History Is All You Left Me by Adam Silvera, Remedied highlights the hardships of growing up, changing, and coming to terms with who you are.
Oliver Quinn doesn’t want a tutor— after having grown up scared of everything, along with all the bullying at school, he doesn’t want to deal with yet another person being handed a reason to judge him. But his tutor turns out to be Alexander Rayes, a boy he’s had a crush on since his freshman year. So he figures that it can’t be all that bad, and that maybe it’s actually a virtue.
Throughout the course of his junior year, Oliver experiences a lot of firsts. More specifically, he experiences falling in love with someone who might be a little more complicated than he’d initially thought. And with the responsibility of falling in love comes the responsibility of growing up, something Oliver isn’t quite sure he’s ready for.
As Alex grieves the loss of his father and Oliver tries to understand what he doesn’t know in such a way that makes it almost detrimental to his health, the two find comfort and understanding in each other. With the hope of helping his boyfriend with something he doesn’t want to admit to, Alex slowly reveals his past, though barely sating Oliver’s need to know everything out of his fear of the unknown. Through these revelations, Oliver learns that you can’t save somebody, you can only love them, but nevertheless, he tries.
Realistic and relatable, Remedied is based on the struggle of being a mentally ill, gay teenager in high school. Similar to other LGBTQ novels such as Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli and History Is All You Left Me by Adam Silvera, Remedied highlights the hardships of growing up, changing, and coming to terms with who you are.
440 pages, Paperback
Published August 20, 2020
19 people want to read
About the author
Amanda Williams
3 books4 followersAmanda Williams is a queer writer who writes about queer things. She's an avid reader, writer, and artist. Her goal is to write realistic LGBTQ characters and to hopefully shed some light on the bits of mental illness and struggles you don't see enough in queer stories. Her interests include becoming emotionally attached to every character she reads and writes and binge listening to musicals. You can follow her on Instagram at @theamandapress if you would like updates on books and some fun art and snippets!
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
January 31, 2021
this book is one of the best ive ever read !! seriously it’s insanely accurate and relatable if youre an lgbtq+ teen / adult or struggling with mental illness or Both. the writing is amazing and it’s definitely worth a read :”}
January 30, 2021
This book sparked my love for reading I recommended this book to all of my fellow readers. Watching Oliver and Alex’s relationship grow was a beautiful thing. The characters are extremely relatable, you fall in love with all of them! I cannot wait for the second book. Overall I loved it!
October 28, 2020
This book was wonderful! It was refreshing to read about LGBTQ+ characters who were relatable, non stereotypical, and realistic. I felt like the characters were old friends, this book made my heart ache in all the best ways. A must read!!!!
October 28, 2020
great read and characters and awesome plot! can’t wait for the next
Merged review:
SUCH a good read! great plot and great characters and even better representation - thank you for this
Merged review:
SUCH a good read! great plot and great characters and even better representation - thank you for this
November 5, 2020
Halfway through the book and so far it is so cute and really well written. The author does a great job making the characters feel real, they sound their age and no forced dialogue or story to make them sound older than they are. Can't wait to continue reading the rest of the books when they come. Love Ollie and Alex, so cute ❤
May 11, 2021
I specifically liked the last 150ish pages of the book give or take. Actually the scene between Oliver and his mom when he returns from spending the day at the cemetery with Alex, and he’s crying to her about not knowing how to help Alex, made me shed an actual tear.
I just felt that this book could have been much shorter. I felt like a lot of things didn’t need explanations and elaborations and I would have preferred the words/dialogue to speak for itself. I also thought a lot of it was kinda repetitive at times. Many of the same things were said throughout the story. Additionally, the perspective changed sporadically and without warning. Like most of the book was third person from Oliver’s perspective but there would be paragraphs or sections from Alex’s perspective that really threw me off.
I still enjoyed it. And I really appreciate characters with mental health issues and subsequent stories that reflect their struggles. I did feel like at times, Ollie’s anxiety struggles got lost in the story and were neglected. Like I understand anxiety manifests differently on different days, and some days your fine and others you can’t breathe, but it seemed like his struggles were forgotten at times. Idk!
I want this to be a constructive review because I’m impressed by new authors who can publish works like this, and was surprised by how much I liked this book. I just think there was a lot of filler stuff that took away from the story.
2.5-3 ⭐️’s
I just felt that this book could have been much shorter. I felt like a lot of things didn’t need explanations and elaborations and I would have preferred the words/dialogue to speak for itself. I also thought a lot of it was kinda repetitive at times. Many of the same things were said throughout the story. Additionally, the perspective changed sporadically and without warning. Like most of the book was third person from Oliver’s perspective but there would be paragraphs or sections from Alex’s perspective that really threw me off.
I still enjoyed it. And I really appreciate characters with mental health issues and subsequent stories that reflect their struggles. I did feel like at times, Ollie’s anxiety struggles got lost in the story and were neglected. Like I understand anxiety manifests differently on different days, and some days your fine and others you can’t breathe, but it seemed like his struggles were forgotten at times. Idk!
I want this to be a constructive review because I’m impressed by new authors who can publish works like this, and was surprised by how much I liked this book. I just think there was a lot of filler stuff that took away from the story.
2.5-3 ⭐️’s
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews