I guess I should start by saying this was a book I needed when I was younger, and I'm super envious of anyone who needs it today when it's available right there in Waterstones.
The 1980s in Britain were great if you were white, straight, male and rich. If you were from any kind of marginalised group, the eighties were a lot less fun. Just take a look at some of the newspaper headlines the gay community were faced with over their morning cornflakes: https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2018/11/30/world-aids-day-1980s-headlines-tabloids
I was nine in 1986 when the AIDS: Don't Die Of Ignorance campaign (https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2017/sep/04/how-we-made-dont-die-of-ignorance-aids-campaign) was launched. Fun times. To say all this had an impact on me would be something of an understatement, as my therapist will attest.
The story weaves over the course of about a year changing POV between the three MCs and you see the grow and develop as people and make the decisions that will ultimately shape their adult lives. The three MCs are beautifully flawed and ultimately hopeful. There was plenty about them I didn't like but I never stopped rooting for them. I mostly identified with Reza - I don't know what it's like to be Iranian, or a dude, but I do know what it's like to lie awake at night convinced that you're going to die of AIDS and this was really well portrayed.
The only small criticism I'd have of this book is that it is written through a modern lens, knowing what we know now about AIDS/HIV. For all that Reza is shown as being terrified of AIDS (and this is portrayed really well), for me it didn't quite capture how pervasive AIDS-terror was for society as a whole and how high anti-gay sentiment ran. Maybe this was something to do with the book being set in New York and not in the small, redneck town in East Anglia where I grew up.
This is a really small criticism though and doesn't detract from this being a five star book.
5 stars