And They Lived . . .

Overview

Chase Arthur arrives at college carrying a lifelong devotion to Disney films, a hope of becoming an animator, and a quieter conviction that he isn't enough for anyone who might love him. That belief traces back to an eating disorder he's still recovering from, a body dysmorphia his father helped instill, and an unresolved question about his own gender identity that he hasn't found the words for yet.

Freshman year brings its own pressures: distance from his sister, the scramble to find people who feel like home, and a rivalry with his former best friend Leila, who is competing with him for the same coveted mentorship. Underneath it all sits a deadline — a short film due for the freshman animation showcase that Chase can't seem to finish.

Into this unsteady year comes Jack Reid, a poet raised in a sheltered, conservative household who is only beginning to understand his own sexuality. Their connection is immediate and destabilizing for both of them, and it forces Chase to confront how much of his self-worth has been borrowed from other people's expectations, while Jack reckons with a homophobia absorbed early and reinforced by the family and childhood friend he still can't fully walk away from.

A Fairy Tale Rebuilt for the Real World

Steven Salvatore, who previously explored body image and identity in Can't Take That Away, borrows the architecture of a fairy tale — the meet-cute, the swoon, the happily-ever-after — and fills it with the mess of actual adolescence: disordered eating, family-inflicted shame, and the slow, nonlinear work of figuring out who you are outside of someone else's gaze. The novel sits within a wave of contemporary YA that treats queer romance as a vehicle for joy rather than tragedy, pairing lighthearted campus comedy with unresolved grief and anxiety that don't disappear just because a relationship begins.

Blurbs from authors like Becky Albertalli and Jason June frame the book as an emotionally heightened, generous love story, and much of its appeal lies in refusing to separate romance from recovery — Chase's arc toward loving Jack runs alongside, rather than in place of, his arc toward tolerating himself.

Why And They Lived . . . Has Been Challenged

Chase and Jack's relationship develops physically as well as emotionally, and the novel describes their intimacy with a directness that some readers have found more explicit than they expect from a book shelved for teenagers. That candor, paired with the story's unguarded treatment of disordered eating, body dysmorphia, and a teenage character still sorting out his gender identity, has prompted objections from parents and community members who argue the content is too mature or too clinically frank for a school library audience. Others have objected on the basis of the book's queer subject matter generally, viewing a same-sex romance centered on sexual self-discovery as inappropriate for adolescent readers regardless of how it is handled. Within this catalog, those objections have resulted in the book being challenged or restricted in 6 states and 11 districts.