Tag Archives: lgbtq

Off Campus

Book Review of Off Campus, by Amy Jo Cousins

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Off CampusI bought a copy of Off Campus, by Amy Jo Cousins.

Description from Goodreads:
Everyone’s got secrets. Some are just harder to hide.

With his father’s ponzi scheme assets frozen, Tom Worthington believes finishing college is impossible unless he can pay his own way. After months sleeping in his car and gypsy-cabbing for cash, he’s ready to do just that.

But his new, older-student housing comes with an unapologetically gay roommate. Tom doesn’t ask why Reese Anders has been separated from the rest of the student population. He’s just happy to be sleeping in a bed.

Reese isn’t about to share his brutal story with his gruff new roommate. You’ve seen one homophobic jock, you’ve seen ’em all. He plans to drag every twink on campus into his bed until Tom moves out. But soon it becomes clear Tom isn’t budging.

Tom isn’t going to let some late-night sex noise scare him off, especially when it’s turning him on. But he doesn’t want any drama either. He’ll keep his hands, if not his eyes, to himself. Boundaries have a way of blurring when you start sharing truths, though. And if Tom and Reese cross too many lines, they may need to find out just how far they can bend…before they break.

Review:
This book is of such a higher caliber than many of the M/M books I’ve read. If I used stars, I’d say it only skirts around a 5 star for personal preference, not-the-perfect-book/reader-matchup issues.

I really appreciated the two real, flawed, but surviving main characters. I liked the larger than life side characters too. Cousins used repetition to highlight Tom’s obsessive thinking and his anxiety level was instantly recognizable. Similarly, Reece’s coping mechanisms were believable. I liked how hard the characters had to work for their happiness and I really loved Toms need to make ‘this one thing’ work out and be right and good for someone. It was both utterly selfish and completely generous at the same time and the dichotomy of it was delicious. I The writing and humor is also excellent.

I did think that a couple major problems were solved with questionable ease toward the end and I was almost offended with how easily the second largest issue on Tom’s list of fears was just swept away. (Though I do see what the author was doing there.) But these are small complaints in the grand scheme of things. Really a great read.

Werewolves of Brooklyn

Book Review of Werewolves of Brooklyn, by Brad Vance

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Werewolves of BrooklynI nabbed a copy of Brad Vance‘s Werewolves of Brooklyn from the Amazon free list.

Description from Goodreads:
Darien Mackey wasn’t looking for an adventure. For ten years, he’d been happy living in Brooklyn, working as a butcher in the same job, living in the same apartment, dating some “nothing-special” guys. Until one night his buddy Jacob talked him into taking ayahuasca, the soul-changing drug. And Darien had a vision…of a wolf, its all-too-human eyes on him, its paws on his chest, its enquiring mind in his own… 

Darien Mackey is changing. He’s more confident, more assertive, hungrier, hornier. And his world is changing around him – his job, his home, his beloved Mechanic’s Library all falling victim to the predations of unscrupulous developers, bent on demolishing the old Brooklyn he loves and replacing it with a forest of condos. But he’s no longer a passive observer of his own life, and as this thing, this power, grows inside of him, he resolves to fight back, to preserve the way of life he loves. 

And he’s not alone in the fight. The Lipsius Preservation Society of Brooklyn stands ready to assist in the battle, even though it seems like a bit of a joke to Darien, with its King and its Duke, Marquess, Earl and Viscount. 

But there’s nothing funny about his growing attraction to Albeus Finley, King of this mysterious Court. And when slumlords and condo-mongers start to die mysterious, violent deaths at the hands of savage animals, Darien begins to realize that something is afoot in Brooklyn – something supernatural. 

And it’s afoot in him, too…

Review:
Ok, first things first, as a point of information rather than part of the review: despite the cover, this is not a historical novel. With the exception of a rather lengthy flashback this has a contemporary setting. That surprised me. As did the fact that the story ends at 82%, the rest being a sneak-peak of another book.

Moving on. I basically liked this but it felt insubstantial, at least the latter half did. It had a very strong start but then the pace picked up and everything happened too quickly and there developed a ‘Darien can do anything without consequences feel’ that just felt like poor structuring. The romance was almost instant, though I’m still not sure if this was a ‘fated mate’ scenario or just insta-love. There were mysteries left unsolved–why was Darien progressing in his change quicker than others, what was the friend’s trip like, where was the Count from, what happened to Daniel, what’s with the court titles anyway, etc.

There were also some hinky sexual roles going on. I’ll grant that I’ve been party to a few ‘penetration politics’ discussions lately, so maybe I’m just on the lookout for this, but I was greatly disturbed by the very clear association with bottoming and submitting or being submissive. Even when one character was described as a ‘power bottom who’s always in control’ he was also described as a submissive for being the catcher. How is that being submissive? I get it with the wolves, sure, but this was general. And it was all complicated by how much topy-top-top Darien’s personality changed once he decided he was willing to ‘submit’ to Albeus. At one point he (6 foot plus and over 200 pounds) really was carried up the stairs in a princess hold while he clung weepily to Albeus. That should tell you something.

I did appreciate that the men were kind of like hipster bears. (Though Darien hated the term hipster.) But they were big and bearded, wore flannel and long johns and started youthful urban businesses. Hipsters. Either way, it was nice to see a different body type presented as sexy.

The Nothingness of Ben

Book Review of The Nothingness of Ben, by Brad Boney

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Before I begin, let me apologize for not updating recently. As I noted here, I've had houseguests and haven't gotten much reading done.

The Nothingness of BenI bought a copy of The Nothingness of Ben, by Brad Boney.

Description from Goodreads:
Ben Walsh is well on his way to becoming one of Manhattan’s top litigators, with a gorgeous boyfriend and friends on the A-list. His life is perfect until he gets a phone call that brings it all crashing down: a car accident takes his parents, and now he must return to Austin to raise three teenage brothers he barely knows. 

During the funeral, Ben meets Travis Atwood, the redneck neighbor with a huge heart. Their relationship initially runs hot and cold, from contentious to flirtatious, but when the weight of responsibility starts wearing on Ben, he turns to Travis, and the pressure shapes their friendship into something that feels a lot like love. Ben thinks he’s found a way to have his old life, his new life, and Travis too, but love isn’t always easy. Will he learn to recognize that sometimes the worst thing imaginable can lead him to the place he was meant to be?

Review:
There probably won’t be much to this review, but that very lack of detail is as strong a sign of my opinion of this book as a 500 word essay would be. While there was nothing particularly wrong with it, structurally or literarily, there was also nothing in it that particularly appealed to me. I read it to finish it, but that’s about it. At one point, I set it aside because I had houseguests and didn’t get to pick it up for several days. I had already all but forgotten it and it was an effort to make myself start it again.

Mostly, I strongly disliked the main character, Ben. I know he grew throughout the narrative, but I still never came to like him. There were also a number of personal pet peeves that cropped up. There were a lot of television references, for example. I HATE this. You see, I don’t own a television. I haven’t sat down and watched a single television show in years. So, all those witty TV quotes and comparisons to series characters, I don’t get them. My abhorrence of this isn’t just not being in on the joke though. What I hate is the assumption that everyone will be.

People also tended to have really idealized conversations that rubbed me the wrong way and struck me as incredibly unrealistic. The same could be said about the way Ben drew people into his family and then paraded them to all the rich and famous people’s homes. Everyone was just so bloody accepting and accommodating—a bunch of Pollyannas, one and all. In the end it just started feeling cheesy.

The dialogue also used names far, far, far too frequently for my tastes. And I thought the language in the sex scenes uncomfortable. Though, I will admit I thought the amount of play in the sex was appreciable.

So, all in all, this book was a fail for me. I basically just found it clumsy in a lot of general, ill-defined ways. But I’m sure it would work for others.