Quick Take
- Narration: Zach Barack, himself a trans actor, brings firsthand authenticity to Neil’s perspective that makes the character’s inner life feel genuinely inhabited rather than performed.
- Themes: Trans identity and self-perception, the difference between friendship and love, class dynamics in a boarding school setting
- Mood: Light on the surface with real feeling underneath, the audiobook equivalent of finishing something faster than you intended
- Verdict: Mason Deaver’s follow-up to I Wish You All the Best is a warmer and more broadly accessible story that earns its romance without straining for it.
The Feeling of Falling in Love arrived in my listening queue on the recommendation of a reader who said it was the kind of audiobook that disappears in an afternoon without you quite noticing. She was right. I started it on a Sunday morning intending to listen for an hour and finished it before dinner, which I realize is not a very critical observation but is probably the most useful thing I can tell you about the experience.
Mason Deaver is doing something recognizable here: the forced proximity road trip romance, with the additional layer of Neil having to navigate a wedding where his complicated feelings about Josh, the childhood friend who just confessed love to him, are impossible to avoid. But Deaver’s handling of Neil as a trans protagonist is where the book distinguishes itself. Neil’s gender is not the primary conflict of the story, but it is not incidental either. It shapes how he moves through the world, how he reads other people’s reactions, and how he interprets his own feelings about Wyatt.
Our Take on The Feeling of Falling in Love
The class dynamic between Neil and Wyatt is underused, which is this book’s real missed opportunity. Neil is from a family prominent enough that his teenage antics make tabloids; Wyatt is at their boarding school on a scholarship and is painfully aware of the gap. Deaver gestures at this tension without fully developing it, which means the reconciliation between them has to do more emotional work than it can quite sustain on its own. Listeners who noticed that Wyatt is consistently more generous than Neil deserves at the beginning are identifying something real. One reviewer summarized this precisely: Wyatt is sweet and sensitive and Neil definitely did not deserve them.
Why Listen to The Feeling of Falling in Love
Zach Barack is exceptional here, and the casting matters more than it might for a different kind of story. Barack is a trans actor, and bringing that lived perspective to Neil’s narration creates a quality of self-knowledge in the character that is difficult to manufacture. When Neil reflects on his own gender, on the ways he has learned to read rooms, on the small ongoing calculations trans people make in unfamiliar spaces, Barack voices those moments with an ease that signals familiarity. It is the difference between a performance of understanding and understanding itself. Reviewers who found the representation healing were responding, I think, to exactly that quality.
What to Watch For in The Feeling of Falling in Love
The wedding setting in Los Angeles is pleasantly used but not exhaustively developed. Deaver is more interested in the relationship dynamics than in place, which is fine but means the LA backdrop feels like a convenience more than a genuine setting. The romantic resolution arrives with a sense of inevitability that makes it satisfying rather than surprising. If you need tension and uncertainty to sustain interest, this may feel slight. If you want to spend time with characters you like moving toward a conclusion you want for them, the experience is as comfortable as it sounds.
Who Should Listen to The Feeling of Falling in Love
This audiobook belongs in the hands of readers who loved I Wish You All the Best and want more of Deaver’s sensibility, readers who are interested in trans protagonists in contemporary YA romance, and anyone who simply needs something that will not ask too much of them emotionally while still delivering real feeling. Adult listeners who found themselves drawn to this because they wished this kind of story existed when they were teenagers are a specific and valid audience that the book recognizes directly. The listener who said it showed trans struggles without obsessing over them has identified the exact pitch Deaver is working at. That pitch is harder to sustain than it looks, and the fact that Deaver manages it across eight and a half hours speaks to how well the material is controlled.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is The Feeling of Falling in Love a sequel to I Wish You All the Best, or can it be listened to independently?
It is a fully standalone audiobook with no prior knowledge of Deaver’s earlier work required. The two books share a tone and a commitment to trans representation but are not connected in plot or characters.
How does Zach Barack handle the scenes involving Josh, the childhood friend whose confession drives the plot?
Barack conveys Neil’s discomfort and guilt about Josh with genuine subtlety. He does not make Neil unsympathetic in those moments, but he also does not let him off the hook. The dynamic with Josh stays complicated in the narration in a way that serves the story well.
Is the romance between Neil and Wyatt slow-burn or does it develop quickly?
It develops at a pace appropriate to a confined road trip and wedding setting: there is resistance followed by gradual thawing, with the romantic realization arriving in the final portion of the book. It is not an extremely slow burn but neither does it skip the development.
Does the audiobook deal with Neil being trans in a way that will be meaningful to trans listeners specifically, or is it more generally accessible?
Both. The details of Neil’s experience are specific enough that trans listeners have found it genuinely representative, while the emotional arc is accessible to any listener who has struggled with self-perception or the gap between how you see yourself and how others see you.
