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Chrysalis
Ever the victim of friendship, Luke seeks out rugby player and fellow student Josh with the intent of asking him out on behalf of a friend. In a moment of panic, he accidentally asks Josh to go out with him instead. Fully expecting to be punched by Josh and his fellow jocks, Luke is dumbfounded when Josh instead says yes—leaving Luke with absolutely no idea what to do, besides run away to panic elsewhere and try to figure out what to do about his unexpected date.
85 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 16, 2011
1 person is currently reading
105 people want to read
About the author
Emily Gould
4 books6 followersEmily has been making up stories since before she could properly speak and has progressed from talking about them, to writing them, to finally typing and publishing them. She writes the kind of stories she likes reading, and is always gratified and mildly surprised to find other people enjoy reading them too. She lives in the UK with her husband, tropical fish and the recent addition of a little baby boy.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
May 27, 2022
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It's a cute kinda silly short YA story. Neurotic emo guy asks out Rugby player. Rugby player turns out to be a sweet intelligent guy. Neurotic guy, is neurotic.
No real background to the characters and perhaps too much of the friend group considering the story length. Six foot Rugby guy is referred by height and sport a lot; seriously a lot. It's a young adult yet they felt younger than uni students.
Quick light read, entertaining though not much to it.
It's a cute kinda silly short YA story. Neurotic emo guy asks out Rugby player. Rugby player turns out to be a sweet intelligent guy. Neurotic guy, is neurotic.
No real background to the characters and perhaps too much of the friend group considering the story length. Six foot Rugby guy is referred by height and sport a lot; seriously a lot. It's a young adult yet they felt younger than uni students.
Quick light read, entertaining though not much to it.
November 17, 2011
It is obvious from the blurb that the main character has foot-in-mouth disease. Add that to a college nerd vs. jock plot line and it is sure to make it to my shopping cart. For $1.99 I was expecting a simple, predictable short story. It was short and simple, but not predictable. There were many things about this story that were pleasantly unexpected.
First, the MC Luke is kind of a brat. Emo-Luke comes off stunted, agitated, and erratic. His agreeable moments come in the form of mumbles, incomplete sentences and head nods, more times than not. His inner dialogue is petty, judgy and irrational. No one escapes Luke's snarky observations, not himself, not Josh, not Josh's friends, and not his own friends.
So how does Luke count as a pleasant surprise?
Luke is definitely not a cookie cutter character. I was interested to know what was going to come out next. Along with the obvious stuff falling out of his mouth and the swirling of chaos that was his thoughts, there is a real sense of fear about his own self-worth and social awkwardness. Not to excuse his behavior, but it helped the story that he knew when he was screwing up ... he just couldn't seem to stop the train wrecks. And while he always *tried* to keep it together, the more time he spent with Josh caused Luke to put more *effort* into it instead of sabotaging himself. The name of the book, Chrysalis, suggests that he will metaphorically "come out of his shell" and finally become the person he is supposed to be.
For being a short story it had a nice size cast. The sexual proclivities of each character were relevantly discussed in such a way to not be intrusive or obnoxious, varying in extremes from asexual to pregnancy-due-to-lack-of-condom, neither being a common thread in m/m romances. The majority is told in "storytelling" mode instead of "here-and-now" mode which, given how much was included in 15,000 words/36 pages, seems to have been the way to go. The love interest, Josh, could have been a stereotypical closeted jock, but instead he openly took Luke in stride and seemed to handle his antics fairly well. And whether everyone is on board with Emo-type characters or not ... they are definitely not written about as often as some of the other character types.
Here are a couple things that I wasn't happy with.
The relationship dynamic between Charles and Chelsea was a bit odd with very little reason why. It could probably be explained away as Charles being an overprotective big brother to his pregnant little sister but I think it was somewhat over done given the amount of space they took on page.
There is something about Luke in which all of his self-loathing, awkwardness, and outward appearance seems to stem from ... but we are not told anything about it except an almost clinical explanation of what and where. No when's, why's or how's. We know how Luke feels because of his caustic ramblings about it being discovered, but I felt that too much was left out since it plays such a huge role in his behavior.
Overall, I would definitely recommend this story to the more adventurous readers who don't mind a less conventional HEA/HFN.
First, the MC Luke is kind of a brat. Emo-Luke comes off stunted, agitated, and erratic. His agreeable moments come in the form of mumbles, incomplete sentences and head nods, more times than not. His inner dialogue is petty, judgy and irrational. No one escapes Luke's snarky observations, not himself, not Josh, not Josh's friends, and not his own friends.
So how does Luke count as a pleasant surprise?
Luke is definitely not a cookie cutter character. I was interested to know what was going to come out next. Along with the obvious stuff falling out of his mouth and the swirling of chaos that was his thoughts, there is a real sense of fear about his own self-worth and social awkwardness. Not to excuse his behavior, but it helped the story that he knew when he was screwing up ... he just couldn't seem to stop the train wrecks. And while he always *tried* to keep it together, the more time he spent with Josh caused Luke to put more *effort* into it instead of sabotaging himself. The name of the book, Chrysalis, suggests that he will metaphorically "come out of his shell" and finally become the person he is supposed to be.
For being a short story it had a nice size cast. The sexual proclivities of each character were relevantly discussed in such a way to not be intrusive or obnoxious, varying in extremes from asexual to pregnancy-due-to-lack-of-condom, neither being a common thread in m/m romances. The majority is told in "storytelling" mode instead of "here-and-now" mode which, given how much was included in 15,000 words/36 pages, seems to have been the way to go. The love interest, Josh, could have been a stereotypical closeted jock, but instead he openly took Luke in stride and seemed to handle his antics fairly well. And whether everyone is on board with Emo-type characters or not ... they are definitely not written about as often as some of the other character types.
Here are a couple things that I wasn't happy with.
The relationship dynamic between Charles and Chelsea was a bit odd with very little reason why. It could probably be explained away as Charles being an overprotective big brother to his pregnant little sister but I think it was somewhat over done given the amount of space they took on page.
There is something about Luke in which all of his self-loathing, awkwardness, and outward appearance seems to stem from ... but we are not told anything about it except an almost clinical explanation of what and where. No when's, why's or how's. We know how Luke feels because of his caustic ramblings about it being discovered, but I felt that too much was left out since it plays such a huge role in his behavior.
Overall, I would definitely recommend this story to the more adventurous readers who don't mind a less conventional HEA/HFN.
February 14, 2012
Reviewed for heartsonfirereviews.com
This story really could have been longer and filled in some backstory, but as it was, I found it light and sweet. Luke is supposed to be finding out if Josh, big giant rugby player, is gay, and if he is not, Luke is supposed to ask him if he would go out with Luke’s friend, Emmy. What emo-looking Luke does instead is basically shout out, “are you gay?” and then panic when Josh and his friends begin looming. He loses his grasp on what he is supposed to be doing and screamingly asks Josh if he will go out with Luke. To his amazement and complete terror, Josh agrees.
Luke spends the majority of the story trying to get Josh to go away, yet continues to accept Josh’s invitations. While it was endearing that Josh would tolerate so much angsty drama, Luke seemed a bit like a brat. He purposefully dresses as emo as possible on his first date with Josh, hoping Josh would then hate him and leave. Then why go?
Luke ends up being a little more complicated than he appears, and I liked him much better then. Definitely a matter of communication making things better, in my opinion. Josh’s friends did sound like jerks, but then so did some of Luke’s. Charles, asexual and not interested, was actually very interesting to read, and sister Chelsea even more so. All of them together make such a great group, Josh included. I’d like to have known more about Josh’s family, because he gets so upset.
This story really could have been longer and filled in some backstory, but as it was, I found it light and sweet. Luke is supposed to be finding out if Josh, big giant rugby player, is gay, and if he is not, Luke is supposed to ask him if he would go out with Luke’s friend, Emmy. What emo-looking Luke does instead is basically shout out, “are you gay?” and then panic when Josh and his friends begin looming. He loses his grasp on what he is supposed to be doing and screamingly asks Josh if he will go out with Luke. To his amazement and complete terror, Josh agrees.
Luke spends the majority of the story trying to get Josh to go away, yet continues to accept Josh’s invitations. While it was endearing that Josh would tolerate so much angsty drama, Luke seemed a bit like a brat. He purposefully dresses as emo as possible on his first date with Josh, hoping Josh would then hate him and leave. Then why go?
Luke ends up being a little more complicated than he appears, and I liked him much better then. Definitely a matter of communication making things better, in my opinion. Josh’s friends did sound like jerks, but then so did some of Luke’s. Charles, asexual and not interested, was actually very interesting to read, and sister Chelsea even more so. All of them together make such a great group, Josh included. I’d like to have known more about Josh’s family, because he gets so upset.
September 26, 2014
3.5
Cute and amusing.
Cute and amusing.
March 10, 2019
This was pretty short! Not much to it.
November 30, 2011
If you're a gay emo university student, what would you do when the jock star agrees to go out with you? You probably would be happy and work hard to keep the thing going. Not Luke. He seems work hard to get out of the 'relationship' with Josh that it isn't funny. Yes, at first, he asked Josh out by mistake (it's supposedly for his roommate, Emmy). But when the self sabotage keeps happening, we see that Luke has some psychological problem, although it is never explained. While Luke realizes his problem, as a reader I simply didn't enjoy reading it.
This is a nice story, but I found Josh to be too good to be true, especially in light of Luke's behaviors. Also, there are just too many unnecessary supporting characters in such short story. I have a feeling the author simply prepared this to be the first book of a series with those friends becoming main characters in the subsequent books.
August 12, 2016
3.5 stars
This is a cute story with a great cast of secondary characters. I would have liked to get to know Josh better, but the limited understanding of his character is written specifically filtered through Luke's POV.
This story has a definite style of writing to it. It has a strong voice -- taking Luke's very quirky, naive, idealistic, and cynic personality and infusing the prose with that same charm.
I thought that the "dates" were particularly well written with lots of great dialogue. There's quite a bit to like about this story, though for many it will come down to personal taste in the writing style.
This is a cute story with a great cast of secondary characters. I would have liked to get to know Josh better, but the limited understanding of his character is written specifically filtered through Luke's POV.
This story has a definite style of writing to it. It has a strong voice -- taking Luke's very quirky, naive, idealistic, and cynic personality and infusing the prose with that same charm.
I thought that the "dates" were particularly well written with lots of great dialogue. There's quite a bit to like about this story, though for many it will come down to personal taste in the writing style.
December 23, 2011
This is the first I've read of this author and it's a cute short story about Josh, rugby player and Luke a sort of emo college student who accidentally asks him out. This story was really very sweet - the misunderstandings and the nervous behavior on their dates were very believable! I really enjoyed the interaction between Luke and Josh and their friends. I hope that everything works out for these cute boys.
April 19, 2013
2012 Review:
A sweet, intelligent, realistic, British short story. Completely and utterly real people.
It was kind of endearing, even if nothing ever went right, but Luke had a boyfriend in the end and was no longer a virgin. Okay, so that was not the main part, but their relationship’s kinda cute.
I also liked that the sex was never described at all, just alluded to in retrospect. Classy!
A sweet, intelligent, realistic, British short story. Completely and utterly real people.
It was kind of endearing, even if nothing ever went right, but Luke had a boyfriend in the end and was no longer a virgin. Okay, so that was not the main part, but their relationship’s kinda cute.
I also liked that the sex was never described at all, just alluded to in retrospect. Classy!
January 18, 2012
I want to give it 4 stars, but it's just too short that so many potential things left undeveloped.
Not that I'm disappointing since it's kind of my thing. It's short and simple, nice and easy, also sweet and cute.
In case the author want to write another story about people in it, I suggest it better be Charles. The one that doesn't interesting to anything at all, oh really? :))
Not that I'm disappointing since it's kind of my thing. It's short and simple, nice and easy, also sweet and cute.
In case the author want to write another story about people in it, I suggest it better be Charles. The one that doesn't interesting to anything at all, oh really? :))
March 29, 2012
Oh, I really liked this short story about a hot, hulking rugby player and the shy, nervous emo guy who asks him out. Very cute and a lot of fun. Loved seeing poor Luke come out of his shell and realize he can have things that he wants and is worth being liked, even by hottie jocks. Liked this one a lot.
December 5, 2011
This was an interesting short story. The writing style was comical and overall enjoyable. I liked it, but I think it was to short. This could be a better story with a more developed plot. I wouldn't mind reading the sex scenes which were cut out, too.
March 13, 2012
Super. This sweet little romance kinda cute. It will be good if the story not too short. Overall I like it. 3,5 stars!
December 14, 2014
Cute short nerd-jock romance.
February 14, 2016
1.5* maybe -- the characters and their story were confusing and really underdeveloped.
October 8, 2016
I'm over the madly insecure characters, they're just too annoying to read.
August 10, 2016
2.7 maybe
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews