The Cellmate

by Rachel West

Andy Bingham got behind the wheel after a night of heavy drinking and set in motion a series of events that would change his life forever. On his first night in prison after his drunk driving conviction, his cellmate, Jesse Cohen, surprises him by crawling into his bed. The sex is impersonal, not at all Andy's style, but somehow exactly what he needs, and it feels so good to be close to someone again that he doesn't question it. The two men gradually forge a friendship, to their mutual surprise. As Andy learns more about the dark periods in Jesse's past, they begin to understand that they have more in common than they once suspected. Andy and Jesse are on a slow and painful road, and they will struggle to acknowledge something of substance between them? and to discover whether what they have can survive the tough road that lies ahead.

Genres: M M Romance, Contemporary, Romance, Short Stories, LGBT, Contemporary Romance

Nook

First published June 1, 2010

About the author

Rachel West lives in the Virginia mountains, where she dotes on her loving partner and their two cats and works in a job that is much less exciting than writing about boys in love. When not wandering around in her characters' world, she loves to hike, play silly board games, and read everything she can get her hands on.

Reviews

[AngelFire · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF @ 33%

There was a high chance that this would be bad and unfortunately, I was proven right. It seems that the things I want from a prison MM romance don't match what the majority want to read. As with many other prison MM romances, this one is mostly erotica, it's badly written and the prison aspect isn't taken seriously at all.

The worst part was the writing. Everything was incredibly rushed with the MCs starting their sexual relationship within the first few pages and Chapter 1 not even having ended before one MC has a jealous hissy fit over the other getting a letter from their ex-boyfriend. Since the MCs get together so early on and the story is only from Andy's POV, I didn't get to know Jesse at all and because of that, I didn't care about their romance and I felt there was zero chemistry between them.

The writing style also wasn't my cup of tea. Both MCs were drama llamas, having big emotional outbursts and frequently going into excessive detail about how they felt about each other, which didn't suit either character or the setting they were in. But in addition, the author made the baffling decision to skip over writing important scenes (like the first time they have meaningful/emotional sex and the first time Andy's ex boyfriend comes to visit him) and then tells readers what happened during those scenes afterwards. Not only is that approach lazy but it added to the crazy rushed pace of the story.

Lastly, the author didn't take the prison aspect seriously at all. As in - these two guys could have been roommates who were down on their luck so they were sharing a room and nothing would have changed about the story. Being in prison had no impact on them whatsoever. They spend their days hanging out, eating together, going out in the yard together and they spend every night sharing a bed because the guards at this prison apparently don't do any night rounds (lol). There's no discussion about what's happening with other prisoners and how Andy (who's a naïve kid from a rich family) managed to adapt to being in prison. The fact that both Andy and Jesse are shown to be on kitchen duty from the time they start their sentences demonstrates that the author did no research and didn't want to bother taking the prison setting seriously. When we learn that Andy is in prison because he drove drunk and killed somebody, yet he's constantly throwing himself a pity party and the author wants us to think that Andy is a really sweet, really good guy, I lost any remaining interest I had in the story. I love bad guys but only if the author doesn't romanticize their bad behavior in an attempt to make them a good bad guy.

Anyway. I knew this one would likely suck but it had higher ratings and more positive reviews than other prison romances that I'd looked at so I thought I'd give it a shot. Unfortunately, my streak of not finding good prison MM romances continues.

[SheReadsALot · Rating 4 out of 5]

I so needed a story like this. I'll admit I will forever be in "Oz" withdrawal (the re-runs just have to suffice) But this was such a good, sad, slightly humorous short story with real heroes.

Andy really messed up being a foolish drunk driver and landed himself in jail...to fall in love with his cellmate, Jesse. The story isn't 100% true to life but I enjoyed the real-ish elements. I enjoyed the realism with the prison sentences and how the couple did not just have a happy ending thrown into their laps just because they fell in love.

Story started a little gritty but it ended just right, sweet but I didn't gag on sugar.

Pretty solid in between read.

[Tink Magoo is bad at reviews · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Jimmy Hanson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very sweet. A light, easy read with just enough tenderness to warm the heart but no gushy love-at-first-sight adoration.

Jesse and Andy are put together by happenstance and yet both find something that was missing in their lives before each other. Still, that odesn't mean that once they come together the rest of the world will just fall into place - they are, after all, still in jail. What they're charged with, in my opinion, doesn't really warrant the time that each one is given, but that can be overlooked.

No magic wands fix everything, there are still things that neither one want to face [Dean, and Jesse's dad for instance:], and which will probably come back to haunt them a bit when they get out. The story's not about that and doesn't put it all in a neat little bow of boom! All peachy-clean-happy! ... and I think I liked that most of all. This novel is just a picture, a moment of happiness found in the life of two men who had it rough in their own ways before, made a great deal of mistakes, and are now learning from them.

[Josephine Myles · Rating 4 out of 5]

This charming novella charts the growing romance between young cellmates Jesse and Andy. What starts with a purely physical relationship, blooms into something far more important to them both.

Rachel West is excellent at charting the fluctuating emotions of the lovers, and manages to write sex scenes that are both hot and emotionally satisfying.

Really I would rate this a 4.5, as the only thing that let it down for me was a lack of exploration of the prison setting in the early chapters. I felt that there were missed opportunities to show more of Andy's reactions to the hostile new world he found himself in.

Still, highly recommended for those who want a hot m/m romance that errs on the side of sweet rather than gritty, despite the setting.

[Nile Princess · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this. So simple and yet so beautiful and packed with so much emotion for 82 pages. Jesse and Andy made me smile and they made me teary. Especially at the end. Warmed my heart all the way through. Loved them.

[Ami · Rating 4 out of 5]

Aww, this is a sweet story about two young man who find themselves falling in love when being a cell-mate. While the first sex might be impersonal, I grow to love Andy and Jesse. I think both have their issues (Andy was a drunk, Jesse had a misplaced guilt over his sexuality) but after they find each other, they are able to find redemption. I admit I had tears during the scene where Andy met with the woman, who was a victim of his DUI accident. It's just so beautiful.

[Kari Gregg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Several family members work in corrections so I didn't expect to like this book nearly as much as I did. Very difficult to empathize with inmates when it's your brother or niece or cousin on duty during a mass recall. But oh wow, the characters just sucked me right in. Excellent.

[αиgєℓα · Rating 3 out of 5]

Si me gusto pero no me encanto no se le falto esa chispa de hombria la neta andy era demasiado gay 😯no se me esperaba mas tipo jesse

[Sunny · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this sweet story.

The picture we get of Andy before prison is not positive. He was spoiled and immature and incredibly mean to his ex-boyfriend. Jesse was also messed up, with misplaced guilt and a healthy dose of self-hatred. But during their time in prison, Andy is full of sincere regret and Jesse is learning to accept himself without shame.

In terms of prison life, it felt like the setting was mostly glossed over with just a few references that felt true to life, and those were mostly told, not shown. Other than giving the story a slight fairytale feel, it didn't bother me too much because the scenes focusing on the relationship between Andy and Jesse were what I enjoyed the most.

[Elizabeth H. · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars moving up to 3.0 stars, though I hardly know why.

I am beginning to see that I really have different expectations of a book than other readers, or maybe I just am a really tough grader? For me, this book was unrealistic, too short, presented characters who were male but acted like women, and generally dwelt in cliche-land. What redeemed it somewhat was the nicely gentle flow of the writing.

[Simsala · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ow,ow,ow...that hurt - cavity inducing sweetness,fairytale gone prison...
This wasn`t a bad story,well written and all but so not for me....

[Mandy*reads obsessively* · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very sweet and despite the storyline a happy read.
I don't think it could actually play out this way, but that didn't bother me at all, it was just a happy feel good book.

[SJ]

The story is unbelievable for the setting. The gritty realism of prison is only touched on as the focus is the love story between Jesse and Andy. And it’s all just so darn silly. Andy’s parents don’t seem to visit him, but they love his cellmate who miraculously is released after the recanting of a false accusation. He goes to live with these parents. The paralyzed woman whom Andy injured is able to walk again after Jesse constantly visits her, no ex-con stalker here that she allows into her home. Andy writes a seemingly best selling book about his descent into drunk driving that has all the family loving him again and he is released from prison on say so of the now walking victim who kept petitioning the governor.
I can’t go on with this litany of foolishness which negated the chance of any sex being hot.
I need to make a Goodreads bookshelf for these WTF? entries.

[♛ Jarusauskas · Rating 2 out of 5]

Me sorprendió porque el muchacho que empezó siendo Top, terminó siendo Bottom.
O sea, me dio a entender (sin querer) que empezó como seme sólo para satisfacer su necesidad de sentirse en control de una situación que obviamente lo llevó a prisión de una u otra forma, pero cuando por fin estuvo bien consigo mismo y con el hecho de ser gay, ya lo único que quería era morder la almohada y que le soplaran la nuca.

Que está chevere, eh, no digo que no. Pero me dio muchísima gracia.

El final se me hizo MUY apresurado, aparte.

[Maria Aranzabal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Me encanto esta lectura, me encanta la pareja de Andy y Jesse, despues de que los pusieron en la misma selda, Jesse y Andy tenian sexo cada noche, pero con el paso del tiempo, se fueron enamorando, se hicieron pareja y al final gracias a Jesse, salio antes de prision y siguir estando juntos, ame este libro, fue una de las mejores historias que e leido

[Alexandra Taco · Rating 3 out of 5]

Una historia corta, útil para pasar el rato. Andy y Jesse son muy lindos juntos y se nota que son almas gemelas pero su relación es super rápida y sin conflicto lo que le quita puntos para mi. Al final estuve satisfecha.

[Elisa Rolle]

The Cellmate is maybe a bit pink glasses perspective and optimistic, but I don’t think its mainly purpose was to be a drama prison romance, but more a prison romance without the drama.

First of all, even if it’s not clearly stated, I don’t think Andy and Jesse are retained in a high security prison, but probably in some region penitentiary, where small criminals spent their few years of sentence. Andy is inside for being a drunk driver and to have caused a car accident, with death but with a victim, a woman who suffered a semi-permanent paralysis. Jesse is inside for rape, even if there is something that doesn’t match in his story, he is not actually a vicious man, but more someone who would like to be left alone.

True, the fact that the first night they are in the same cell together, Jesse slips in Andy’s bed and have sex with him is not exactly testifying to his good intentions, but Jesse is kind and tender, and Andy is gay and lonely, and so both of them find in each other something. Only for Jesse to snap out when he finds that Andy is indeed gay and not adapting to the situation. There are some buried issues in Jesse’s past, also linked to his conviction, and what he is sharing with Andy is hitting too much near that weak spot.

As I said there is really no drama; life in prison seems a little to easy, but as I said, maybe they are in a low security penitentiary; plus there is the nice turn that, the one that is supposedly the victim in this situation, the narrator, Andy, is indeed the more guilty of the two. For once Andy’s sentence was right, he needed something to right him, and even if the prison is not hard, it’s always a deprivation of freedom, and Andy has the chance to learn from his own mistakes. Maybe for this reason I have never felt like Andy was a victim of Jesse, or that he was suffering unwanted attentions; on the contrary, I think Andy uses Jesse to adapt to the life in prison; he is his mainstay, someone he could rely on. Loving Jesse, Andy is able to make penance for his own mistakes, since he has in front someone who is really not guilty, but he is self-punishing himself; so in a way why Andy, who was guilty, has not to suffer his right punishment.

Maybe the light tone of the story is also due to the fact that both men are really young, 20 years old if much. There is really the feeling that they have a future that this is only a moment in their life, and that when they will be out, there will be still chances for them. Andy is from a good family, who despite all is supporting him, and so the future seems bright for him. Again the one in the worst situation is Jesse, and for this reason, after their first encounter, Andy slowly changes his role from submissive to caretaker, even if they have the same age, more or less, Andy seems stronger and savvier, more confident of himself and his possibilities, and he is ready to share all of this with Jesse.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003TU21TQ/?...

[xbmbgrl · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

"Cellmate" was a shorter book than I had anticipated. Andy and Jesse meet in prison and start having sex the first night. Comforting each other as anonymously as they can without any emotional attachment.

This type of hook up might work if you don’t have to actually live with the person you are trying to stay emotionally distant from. Ties that bind through mutual understanding, confession and loneliness grow stronger everyday despite some bumps in the road.

The first half of the book is very good even if it falls to cliché a bit. Jesse is, as you would suspect, misunderstood and falsely imprisoned for the past 3 years. Andy, while convicted of a drunk driving accident didn’t actually kill anyone but did injure a person. So both men are redeemable.

Events transpire that allow Jesse to get out of jail well before Andy. This is where the book bogged down a bit and I had a hard time suspending disbelief that events would work out in such a way as the book ended. Additionally, the relative safety that they are able to create for themselves and the sense of cohabitation without any repercussions was also difficult to believe. Once Jesse is freed, to get our HEA with 6 years remaining on Andy’s sentence, something had to happen to give us that. Those events seemed very forced.

Along the way both men make new allies and sever old ties to find themselves better men for all they had gone through. Even with the fairytale events and overly optimistic view of life in prison I found the book enjoyable and the writing strong. I do want to believe they are living happy and have found a way to forgive and accept all the parts of themselves where it was necessary.

[Sadonna · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. This is the first book by Rachel West I've read. I really liked the characters of Jesse and Andy. The differences between their lives and families were pretty big. Andy's remorse over his foolish decision to drive drunk and cause the accident that resulted in his prison sentence was handled sensitively. His guilt and isolation from family and friends was understandable.

Jesse's father's homophobia and neglect of his son affected Jesse's ability to form a relationship with Andy. Luckily Andy is able to break through Jesse's walls.

One other thing I really liked about this book was the portrayal of the power of forgiveness. Andy's writing and his victim's ability to see him as a person were really integral to the story.

Kind of odd to call a prison story sweet, but the love story between Jesse and Andy is sweet.

[Nichole (DirrtyH) · Rating 3 out of 5]

So today I got a friend request from someone that I dont' know very well, so I was comparing our books/ratings. And I saw this on the list. Apparently I gave it three stars. I looked at it and said "I don't remember reading that book."
So I went to the book page and read the summary... and I still don't remember reading this book. I don't doubt that I did, I just don't remember it. The blurb sounds vaguely familiar, but it's also very similar to And So Is Love by Scarlet Blackwell, so I think maybe they merged into just one book in my mind?

The point being that apparently this story isn't very memorable. So that's my review.

[Alina]

I'm putting it on hold, because so far it isn't what I expected at all.
I thought it would be something gritty and dark, something like Protection or And So Is Love. Here it was nothing like it, I made it to 25% and it didn't seem like a prison at all, it could as well be the guys in some boarding school or army barracks.

I also didn't know both guys would be so young - only 19 - I kind of thought at least one of them would be older, more experienced.

And don't even get me started about the condoms in fucking prison! I mean seriously! Where would Jesse get them and why it was even needed, since they were all tested before incarceration?!

Probably I'm just not it the mood for this story right now. It's not bad, it's just that I expected something different.

[Libropacat · Rating 5 out of 5]

¡Fue hermoso!
Debo decir que primero me llamó la atención el título de la obra. Y cuando comencé a leerlo, santo cielo, necesitaba saber más. Aclaro que al inicio me fue chocante el hecho de que Jesse fuera tan..., mmh, no fuera el tipo de activo abusivo que imaginé al principio (vaya mente la mía) pero fue un personaje tan tierno, y saber cómo resultó su relación con Andy, ¡oh dios!
No profundizaré mucho, ni daré spoiler, pero sí lo recomiendo a todo aquel que guste de literatura gay y guste del yaoi como yo.
Muy bueno para pasar el rato.

[Gale · Rating 3 out of 5]

Andy and Jesse, two people who found love in the most unusual place - in prison. I doubted they will fall in love. Their relationship, after all, was out of a necessity to satiate their needs. However, as time went by, their weaknesses and faults were what honestly attracted them to each other. I liked the ending because of two things. 1) They both got out of prison. 2) They're still together, madly in love.

[Danielle · Rating 3 out of 5]

There isn't anything particularly bad about this book, in fact it's a super sweet tale about finding love in unlikely places. Except that's the issue isn't it? It's a prison tale made out to be a fairytale romance. The entire book happens at night in their cell so you really don't get even a small glimpse into prison life for the boys.

So, if you are looking for a sweet little story that has the happiest of happy endings this is definitely for you.

[Penny · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall I enjoyed this short story. 3.5 Stars I thought that the character where three dimensional and it tackled a sensitive subject. I don't know how accurately it showed the prison life, but does appear that these cellmates enjoyed a very healthy sex life. I wouldn't have minded a few less sex scene and more dialogue between the two main characters.

[Amy C. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was okay. It's really short and so sweet I might have to visit my dentist to check for cavities. For a book set in prison I was surprised at the lack of prison sex. Sure there was the sweet love-filled intimacy between the MCs but I was expecting raunchy shower scenes or something. There definitely wasn't any soap dropped in this book...

[Stacey Jo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this one. Andy and Jesse were so sweet together. It was a little glimpse into an unpleasant world they lived in. They grew to love each other very much and you could really tell that. I'd love to see more with these two.

[Fairy / Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, yeah, my teeth hurt! Like someone mentioned before, sirupy, but I liked it anyway. Maybe even more than I should ;) I know, I will forget about this book in a couple of days, but, for now, I can tell that it was pleasurable. Don't judge me :P

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

For such a short book there sure was a lot of sex. I found myself counting the pages until I was done. Maybe I should have read more about the book before I started to read because I was not in the mood for this one.