Thank you so much to netgalley for the arc.
I dfn this book at like 20%. It deals with many mental health issues and I don't know if I liked the way things were handled.

Great read.

It's nice to see book and mental health issues that start at a young age and how Daniel sees life no matter where he is at home or Neverland

Boy at the Window is not an easy read. But it is one most definitely worth reading if you are ok with heavy and some what triggering subjects : Emotional trauma, attempted suicide, mental illness.. It has lots of peter pan references that lighten the tone a bit but in parts also darken it. It's an interesting and thought provoking read.

This one has a heavy issue. But, I am afraid, the author didn't wrote it to be an easy read. And, That's not for me. I found my self struggling reading this.

I am going to be honest I did not finish this book. This book dealt with a lot of heavy themes and I did not know that before reading. If I looked at the trigger warnings before reading this I would not have requested this book. I just found it very trigging. I do think that some people will let it. But it was just very hard for me to read.

Reading this book has taken me an incredibly long time, but I'd like to point out that that has nothing to do with the book itself. I was in a reading slump, and couldn't read more than a couple pages a day (and on some days none at all), but once I got out of that and got the hang of the book, I finished it in three days.
In queer books, I always look for characters that I can relate to in one way or another, and Daniel in this book was relatable in so many ways for me. Anxiety? Yupp. Panic attacks? Yes. Dissociating and having a safe place to "run away to" when shit hits the fan? Absolutely. And many more reasons that I won't list right now, cause it would definitely count as spoiler.
The way Jiwon treats Daniel even (or especially) in his most vulnerable state, when he's at his lowest, is something I wish all of us with mental health problems could experience. That warmed my heart and truly presented a reason why life, despite all the hardships, can be worth living.
And shoutout to Mr. Bartel for being absolutely cool and amazing!
Tearjerking yet heartwarming read, from an author who seems to understand (be it from experience or from thorough research) what it's like to be queer and terrified and mentally unwell. Worth every second spent reading, and I'll be reading it again in the future.

Excellent writing with interesting characters, it was very easy to feel a connection to them. I love how the story dives into mental health, queer romance and difficult family dynamics. The Peter Pan references made it even better!

Love this book, the story. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the advanced copy. Truly, this book should become famous. Everyone must read it.
I loved the characters. A love of people. I loved them. The relationship between Jiwon and Daniel, I LOVED IT.

I was quite excited and intrigued by the blurb but it turned out this wasn't for me.

I really liked the idea of a fairy story as an escape for someone and I was hoping the two worlds would weave together seamlessly making me struggle with reality and fiction, but after the first few chapters the Neverland ki d of faded I to the background.

So this is more a coming of age story. A rich teenager struggles with his identity and sexuality and has a terrible relationship with his parents. As a result he attempts suicide and runs off to his imaginary world. In this sense the story isnt bad. The character is likeable, the school setting seems real enough and the cross country element adds a little something different. But this isn't what I wanted to read. I thought it would be more about mental health and blurred reality and less about teenage boy meets teenage boy. The pace was a little slow for me, a lot of going round each other's houses and waiting for track meets. There were hints at bugger issues but they never developed and I wasnt a fan of the ending. It was a bit something and nothing for me.
This will probably appeal to teenagers, but the blurb was misleading and there wasn't much for the older ya market.

While this book may be an accurate portrayal of what it's like to live with this kind of mental illness, I found the narrative difficult to follow and I felt no connection to the story or the characters. DNF'd at 25% and won't be leaving a review outside of netgalley.

I have mixed feelings about this book. I found some of it confusing, which could be simply the author's way of illustrating what living with any kind of mental illness can be like. But, I think what bothered me the most was that it felt a little too simplistic. The dialogue was clipped and quite short and I struggled a bit in connecting to the characters.

I Do think that this is a reasonably good representation of a young person struggling to get back their mental health.

I get what the author was going for, but this was way too confusing to read. Neverland and real life jumped back and forth, and it was just completely unreadable. However, I wouldn't rule out reading other books by this author in the future - the bones are there.