Amelia Applebaum is a high school senior and the titular character of Becky Albertalli’s 2025 YA novel, Amelia, If Only. Just a few weeks shy of graduation, Amelia and her friends take a post-prom road trip to the fictional Blackwell College to attend a meet-and-greet event that includes one of Amelia’s most favorite humans of all time: the semi-famous YouTuber Walter Holland, a fellow high school student.
Amelia has been out as bisexual for years, long before the start of the novel. She was, as she notes in the book, the first of her (mostly queer) friends to kiss someone of the same sex back in middle school, but despite this experience, she felt uncertain about her sexuality until she was older. More confident now, she’s still trying to figure some things out — the most prominent of which being the line between friendship and love.
Walter shares some of these uncertainties with Amelia — not directly, but through his videos online, where he discusses his own experiences for viewers. Amelia loves his content primarily because she feels like Walter understands here, even if they’ve never met. Though Amelia’s friends tease her for having a crush on him, Amelia is adamant that it’s only sort of a crush. She knows that she doesn’t really know him; she just knows his online persona. And even if that persona is very down-to-earth and friendly, it’s not necessarily the real him.
Learning who the real Walter is one of Amelia’s biggest hopes in traveling to Blackwell College for Walter’s event. Added bonuses of the trip include time spent with her three best friends Natalie, Mark, and Zora — the first of which is newly single after a dramatic prom night breakup with her ex-girlfriend, Claire. Helping Natalie get space after that breakup is another added bonus; Amelia is not-so-secretly thrilled that Natalie is single, as Amelia hates Claire and the way she treats Natalie.
As a character, Amelia lives deeply inside her own head, much like Imogen from Albertalli’s 2023 novel Imogen, Obviously. Amelia’s narration is comedic, earnest, and at times very perceptive, particularly when she’s trying to parse her feelings for Walter. (It’s just a parasocial relationship — but also it’s not. She doesn’t really know him, but she feels so connected to him.) In some ways, her fixation with Walter is a distraction from all the change she’s about to experience, between graduating high school in June and then moving to college in the fall. This change, and her general fear of it, are critical plot points in Amelia.
In addition to themes of change and growing up, the novel also asks big questions about friendship, love, and pop culture — and how all of these things shape who we are, even if we don’t realize that it’s happening.