I recently read What If It’s Us by Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera, which i absolutely adored. I have a full review on it HERE if you want to know all my thoughts about the book, but in this post i just want to talk about Arthur.
Arthur is one of the protagonists of What If It’s Us, who was written by Becky. He’s new 
to New York and absolutely in awe of everything around him. He’s desperate to make friends with his mothers employees over the summer he’s there, and he’s also desperate to see Hamilton. Admittedly, Arthur is the character that i connected with the least in the novel. He was quite passionate, and (sadly) that’s not something i think i am. But that meant that i did have a lot to take away from his character and a lot i thought i should learn.
Arthur’s life takes up half of this story, he is the love interest of Ben (written by Adam) and quickly becomes infatuated with the idea of Ben and dating him. So much so that he will do anything in his power to try and find Ben. As i said, he’s extremely passionate. I did learn a lot from him, and those lessons i learned were:
Show your passions – Arthur never hides anything that he loves throughout the whole book. He doesn’t hide his obsession with musicals or how much he’s in awe of New York, or even his emotions from Ben. I absolutely loved that about him, and i found it to be quite the eye opener to somethings that i never do. I have found myself before hiding what i was passionate about, through fear of having to explain many things and disapproval. Arthur does none of this, and i definitely need to learn how to do this!
Go after what you want – Arthur doesn’t give up. He wants Ben and makes sure he finds a way to have him (in a much less creepy sense than that came across), and does so with pretty much everything. He wants friends at work and makes sure he makes them. I like his dedication, and that was a really nice character trait to learn from.
Don’t let go what you don’t want to – *Spoiler* At the end of the novel when Arthur is reluctant to let Ben go, i have always been the kind of person to assume the end is the end. If Arthur were to move away, him and Ben could not be friends anymore. It was as simple as that. However Ben and Arthur still talk no matter the distance and the ending is left pretty open to possibility in the future. Arthur doesn’t let Ben go so easily, and that’s something i need to learn in the future.
So these are the few things that i learned from Arthur whilst reading What If It’s Us. I really loved his story, and his relationship with Ben was excellent. Let me know in the comments if you learned anything from the characters in What If It’s Us, or any other of Becky and Adam’s books!
The Little Contemporary Corner 