Be Dazzled is a YA romance by Ryan La Sala, first published in 2021 by Sourcebooks Fire. It’s marketed on the author’s website with the tagline: “LOVE! GLORY! ANIME! CHAOS! CRAFTS!” It’s La Sala’s second book.
Be Dazzled is narrated by Raffy Odom, a high school student deeply committed to cosplay. He spends his free time designing costumes based on anime and video game characters, the creation of which he sometimes streams live on the fictional platform Ion. He’s preparing to enter a major cosplay competition at Controverse, a fictional convention in Boston, where he’s hoping to take first prize — and maybe receive scholarship money for art school.
Things get complicated, however, when Raffy runs into his ex-boyfriend, Luca. Worse yet, Luca is also competing in the cosplay competition, teamed up with Raffy’s former friend Inaya. It feels like the past is colliding with the present — doubly so when Raffy and Luca are forced to work together for the final portion of the contest. Will they be able to put their hurt feelings aside, or will their cosplay dreams fall apart all over again?
Moving between Raffy’s past relationship with Luca and the present-day Controverse competition, the story explores their relationship, focusing on themes of identity, authenticity, family, and ambition. Raffy is dealing with pressure from his mother Evie, who doesn’t care that Raffy is gay but does have strong (negative) opinions on cosplay, which she views as plagiaristic and a waste of Raffy’s talents. This puts him under immense pressure to both prove her wrong and win her approval, all the while trying to hide his cosplaying and crafting to avoid her ire.
All this hiding gives Raffy a good bit of empathy for Luca, who’s also hiding things from his parents. For Luca, that hiding is partially about his hobbies, which include soccer, video games, anime, and maybe cosplay, if he didn’t feel so ashamed about it; Luca’s Italian Catholic parents also have strong opinions about what constitutes a “proper” hobby for a high school boy — meaning just soccer, from Luca’s list of interests.
This leaves Luca hiding his other interests, and much of his personality, to stay in his parents’ good graces. If they find out about his real interests — about cosplaying with Raffy, and the fact that Luca is bisexual — they’ll never let him leave the house again. Luca’s bisexuality is a key plot point in the novel, as is his parents’ homophobia. Much of his character arc deals with shame and speaking his truth.
The novel received mostly positive reviews from Kirkus Reviews, Publisher’s Weekly, and LGBT literary organization Lambda Lit, among others. Publisher’s Weekly in particular noted that Raffy’s mom felt “over the top” in her hatred of pop culture, but otherwise praised the novel’s themes and romance. The audiobook version won the 2022 Audie Award for Best Audiobook for Young Adults.
If you want to read more about this book, check out our Bi Book Club review of it, here!