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throw up your fists, throw out your wits
Luke doesn’t think he’s ever looked better than he does, right then, bleeding from wounds Luke gave him.
Words:24,581 complete in 9 parts
Words:24,581 complete in 9 parts
74 pages, ebook
First published September 14, 2013
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
April 19, 2022
4.5 stars
So short but so so soooo Gooodd!!!
Luke!!! Gaaahh!! He deserves the best. I wish we got a full length novel.
The writing is amazing, engaging, flowing and just so amazing.
Loved it!!!
So short but so so soooo Gooodd!!!
Luke!!! Gaaahh!! He deserves the best. I wish we got a full length novel.
The writing is amazing, engaging, flowing and just so amazing.
Loved it!!!
January 12, 2024
I’d been putting off reading Luke and Nikita’s story. Whenever I’d seen the author claim she loves all of her MCs, she’d always follow that up with, “except for Nikita.”
Well, *that* certainly doesn’t sound ominous for Luke, does it.
So I knew going in that this wouldn’t be one of the happy ones. But I also knew that further down the line Luke does find his HEA , and I had those stories to look forward to once I was done with this. That helped me psych myself up.
I’d seen Luke Morris around before, here and there in the YCMAL universe. I knew he was a tough guy, an enforcer, a player whose role on the ice was to beat the shit out of guys on the opposing team as needed. (As needed? That’s dying to be qualified with quotation marks, like so: “As needed.” I’ve become a hockey fan since discovering m/m romance, but I hate the glorification of violence that taints the sport.)
In particular I remembered Jared being a smartass to Luke in Impaired Judgement, knowing he was living dangerously (but suffering from that whole Jared thing of being unable to control his mouth). Plus I’d read a short extra or two from Luke’s POV, so I’d already formed an impression of him as tired, short-tempered, and jaded. And that *is* the Luke we get here… paired with flashbacks to very un-jaded 16-year old Luke and the events that set him on the path to a world-weary and self-sabotaging adulthood.
This is a look at how first love and first sexual experiences can deform the path of one’s adult life. In reviews of other m/m books, I’ve bitched mightily about MCs being presented as damaged for life because they got their fee-fees hurt when they were 16. My reaction was always WTF, give me a break — but it turns out I can be convinced, if the author puts in the work. A key factor in creating lasting damage is being caught in circumstances that prevent making a clean break. Healing and moving on can be almost impossible then (something she explores in greater depth and to devastating effect in a later work, but that’s a review I haven’t written yet).
This was written in 2013, and there’s at least one thing that’s no longer canon (Mike Brouwer’s age — in canon he’s five years older than Luke, not ten). I found the present/past time switches to be handled a little awkwardly at first (but the author has mastered that structure in the years since).
There are extra stories about Luke and Nikita available on AO3 and elsewhere. When you’ve finished this, here are three I highly recommend:
- What happened 10 minutes after the story ended, here.
- The author’s commentary on what Luke’s brother Ben did 2 weeks later, which actually made me cry, here.
- Nikita in the aftermath, here.
And now I'm off to read about happier times.
Well, *that* certainly doesn’t sound ominous for Luke, does it.
So I knew going in that this wouldn’t be one of the happy ones. But I also knew that further down the line Luke does find his HEA , and I had those stories to look forward to once I was done with this. That helped me psych myself up.
I’d seen Luke Morris around before, here and there in the YCMAL universe. I knew he was a tough guy, an enforcer, a player whose role on the ice was to beat the shit out of guys on the opposing team as needed. (As needed? That’s dying to be qualified with quotation marks, like so: “As needed.” I’ve become a hockey fan since discovering m/m romance, but I hate the glorification of violence that taints the sport.)
In particular I remembered Jared being a smartass to Luke in Impaired Judgement, knowing he was living dangerously (but suffering from that whole Jared thing of being unable to control his mouth). Plus I’d read a short extra or two from Luke’s POV, so I’d already formed an impression of him as tired, short-tempered, and jaded. And that *is* the Luke we get here… paired with flashbacks to very un-jaded 16-year old Luke and the events that set him on the path to a world-weary and self-sabotaging adulthood.
This is a look at how first love and first sexual experiences can deform the path of one’s adult life. In reviews of other m/m books, I’ve bitched mightily about MCs being presented as damaged for life because they got their fee-fees hurt when they were 16. My reaction was always WTF, give me a break — but it turns out I can be convinced, if the author puts in the work. A key factor in creating lasting damage is being caught in circumstances that prevent making a clean break. Healing and moving on can be almost impossible then (something she explores in greater depth and to devastating effect in a later work, but that’s a review I haven’t written yet).
This was written in 2013, and there’s at least one thing that’s no longer canon (Mike Brouwer’s age — in canon he’s five years older than Luke, not ten). I found the present/past time switches to be handled a little awkwardly at first (but the author has mastered that structure in the years since).
There are extra stories about Luke and Nikita available on AO3 and elsewhere. When you’ve finished this, here are three I highly recommend:
- What happened 10 minutes after the story ended, here.
- The author’s commentary on what Luke’s brother Ben did 2 weeks later, which actually made me cry, here.
- Nikita in the aftermath, here.
And now I'm off to read about happier times.
![Profile Image for annob [on hiatus].](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.gr-assets.com%2Fimages%2FS%2Fcompressed.photo.goodreads.com%2Fusers%2F1674812294i%2F68231680._UX200_CR0%2C0%2C200%2C200_.jpg&w=128&q=75)
March 31, 2021
This love story broke my heart a little, and yet I loved it. Luke's pain, longing, hopes and despair are coming through the pages with brute force. I found the clashes between the protagonists violent, unhealthy but heady.
March 4, 2024
3.75 stars**
March 17, 2023
I think I'll just link Teal's review here, bcs a)it's extremely good (as per usual) and b) I have no braincells left to articulate much at the moment.
There is a lot to be said about consciously setting up a misanthropic, jaded, toxic male love interest who was hurt before and uses that as an excuse to be an asshole (sadly often a staple of unselfaware romances, especially of a certain era) and not only making it work, but making the reader super happy for him when he breaks this cycle of toxicity. And I love that the thing that breaks the cycle is not the love of a good man, so we're not just queering an objectively harmful trope - it's Luke finally walking away from his life-defining dysfunctional relationship (if we can even call it that lol).
I think the reason I'm so impressed with this story is that I'm actually an absolute sucker for those intense "we don't make sense together but somehow we were preordained to be the great loves of each other's lives" dynamics (looking at you, to the sky without limits), and it's sooo easy to get swept away in that...romantic exceptionalism? Much of my romance reading as a teen consisted of Old School histroms, and those books are fundamentally all about exalting (the woman's) first love and exploration of sexuality, with the implicit idea that the love story is so special precisely because there can be No Other Man For Her. Switching over to another genre, Twilight (perhaps because of Meyer's Mormon background and the subsequent persisting need for a virgin heroine with only one romantic and sexual partner to whom she devotes herself from a young age) also follows this script. I guess what I've figured out writing this review that a LOT of my early/formative romance reading followed the exact formula that throw up your fists etc. (AND to the sky without limits!! I now realise it might have sounded like I was dragging that fic earlier, I absolutely was not, it is a masterpiece) subverts. So idk, I just think it's neat.
Also, Luke Morris/therapy WHEN?? the rarepair we all crave for
P.S. I avoided reading this one (and all the accompanying outtakes) bcs I was convinced that this was The Tragic One(tm) bcs I had remembered that The Tragic One(tm) had the word "throw" in the title. I therefore casually and happily proceeded to read Mike/Liam outtakes, thinking that I was safe from harm. HA. HA. HA HA.
There is a lot to be said about consciously setting up a misanthropic, jaded, toxic male love interest who was hurt before and uses that as an excuse to be an asshole (sadly often a staple of unselfaware romances, especially of a certain era) and not only making it work, but making the reader super happy for him when he breaks this cycle of toxicity. And I love that the thing that breaks the cycle is not the love of a good man, so we're not just queering an objectively harmful trope - it's Luke finally walking away from his life-defining dysfunctional relationship (if we can even call it that lol).
I think the reason I'm so impressed with this story is that I'm actually an absolute sucker for those intense "we don't make sense together but somehow we were preordained to be the great loves of each other's lives" dynamics (looking at you, to the sky without limits), and it's sooo easy to get swept away in that...romantic exceptionalism? Much of my romance reading as a teen consisted of Old School histroms, and those books are fundamentally all about exalting (the woman's) first love and exploration of sexuality, with the implicit idea that the love story is so special precisely because there can be No Other Man For Her. Switching over to another genre, Twilight (perhaps because of Meyer's Mormon background and the subsequent persisting need for a virgin heroine with only one romantic and sexual partner to whom she devotes herself from a young age) also follows this script. I guess what I've figured out writing this review that a LOT of my early/formative romance reading followed the exact formula that throw up your fists etc. (AND to the sky without limits!! I now realise it might have sounded like I was dragging that fic earlier, I absolutely was not, it is a masterpiece) subverts. So idk, I just think it's neat.
Also, Luke Morris/therapy WHEN?? the rarepair we all crave for
P.S. I avoided reading this one (and all the accompanying outtakes) bcs I was convinced that this was The Tragic One(tm) bcs I had remembered that The Tragic One(tm) had the word "throw" in the title. I therefore casually and happily proceeded to read Mike/Liam outtakes, thinking that I was safe from harm. HA. HA. HA HA.
March 19, 2021
LUKE MORRIS ... this is another bittersweet but short Taylor story.
December 17, 2024
Is it sick that Luke doesn't even end up with his guy and yet if I had to make a list of MCs I respect, he'd be top 5?
There's no HEA here. And the author ends it with...You can come yell at me on tumblr, if you wish.
But I don't want to yell. Love the fuck out of this ending because I didn't want Nikita for Luke, and some things should be unforgivable and love doesn't heal all wounds and much as I'm usually delusional enough to want to see that in romance, it's refreshing that we don't get that here.
'The first time Luke touched Nikita he gagged on him, and that’s been true ever since, more or less.'
Nikita's hard to swallow. Literally and figuratively. Physically. Emotionally. He's careless with Luke. Well. Indifferent at first, then careless.
Both of which suck because he really could have just let him be. But noooo. Had to go fuck him over for shits and giggles.
"Tell me to leave her." after laughing at someone the first time they told you they loved you more than a decade ago is hall of fame levels of audacity.
Oh, and saying you weren't only with just them, they just happened to gag for it more than anyone else you fucked.
Really. No notes.
That said,
"I think I'm in love with you," followed by a derisive "So?" healed my bitter black heart.
Like why's that Luke's business? Sounds like a Nikita problem 🤷
I wish Luke gets his happy ending one day but if he doesn't, I'm still glad he said 'Fuck you and fuck that' to that man.
There's no HEA here. And the author ends it with...You can come yell at me on tumblr, if you wish.
But I don't want to yell. Love the fuck out of this ending because I didn't want Nikita for Luke, and some things should be unforgivable and love doesn't heal all wounds and much as I'm usually delusional enough to want to see that in romance, it's refreshing that we don't get that here.
'The first time Luke touched Nikita he gagged on him, and that’s been true ever since, more or less.'
Nikita's hard to swallow. Literally and figuratively. Physically. Emotionally. He's careless with Luke. Well. Indifferent at first, then careless.
Both of which suck because he really could have just let him be. But noooo. Had to go fuck him over for shits and giggles.
"Tell me to leave her." after laughing at someone the first time they told you they loved you more than a decade ago is hall of fame levels of audacity.
Oh, and saying you weren't only with just them, they just happened to gag for it more than anyone else you fucked.
Really. No notes.
That said,
"I think I'm in love with you," followed by a derisive "So?" healed my bitter black heart.
Like why's that Luke's business? Sounds like a Nikita problem 🤷
I wish Luke gets his happy ending one day but if he doesn't, I'm still glad he said 'Fuck you and fuck that' to that man.
October 17, 2023
It took me a full day to recover from the sadness that this story gave me. 10 years! How many 10 years do you have in your life to waste? Youcouldmakealife’s writing is as great as ever, but I wish I could unread this book.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 20, 2021
I don't usually add fics on Goodreads, but I'm gonna make an exception on Fitzpatrick's fics. One, because they aren't fan fics (unless you can write fanfics about your own original characters?), and two, because they are generally worlds better than the majority of the Kindle books in the same categories.
This specific fic managed to leave me literally gasping after the last page. Seriously kicked the air right out of me. This is not a pretty story, and it didn't make me feel particularly good, but it was still so well done.
I knew this author has the capability to not be nice to her characters, but I'm getting a little scared picking up anything else from her, as she's just as likely to make me unexpectedly blush as she is to make me break down crying.
This specific fic managed to leave me literally gasping after the last page. Seriously kicked the air right out of me. This is not a pretty story, and it didn't make me feel particularly good, but it was still so well done.
I knew this author has the capability to not be nice to her characters, but I'm getting a little scared picking up anything else from her, as she's just as likely to make me unexpectedly blush as she is to make me break down crying.
January 4, 2024
(3rd read) i can't believe it has been two years since i last read this. can't believe i've gone this long without nikita. yeah. i love him so much, SUE ME. this was the best way to start the year.
(2nd read) i love this so much! i love pain!
i am in the mood for toxic stuff and decided to reread one of my favorite YCMAL stories from the few i've read. in my perception, it's not exactly a unrequited love story, but it is something of the sort; both the MCs are unlikable at some point, specially Nikita who somehow i manage to like, his assholery is just on point for my taste, and the author being such a great writer helps for sure.
no HEA, (not a romance, never was promised one) just heartbreak and anger. it's the story of two NHL players who have a famous rivalry the media loves to feed from, and them being both enforcers, it's a violent rivalry. all the content warnings you need before reading are included on the notes of part 1.
(2nd read) i love this so much! i love pain!
i am in the mood for toxic stuff and decided to reread one of my favorite YCMAL stories from the few i've read. in my perception, it's not exactly a unrequited love story, but it is something of the sort; both the MCs are unlikable at some point, specially Nikita who somehow i manage to like, his assholery is just on point for my taste, and the author being such a great writer helps for sure.
no HEA, (not a romance, never was promised one) just heartbreak and anger. it's the story of two NHL players who have a famous rivalry the media loves to feed from, and them being both enforcers, it's a violent rivalry. all the content warnings you need before reading are included on the notes of part 1.
"Just you?" Nikita asks. "You think just you?" He reaches out, gets Luke's chin in his hand, meets his eyes. "There were girls, but no one as easy as you. No one loves it like you. My slut. You do anything for me."
May 21, 2015
Holy crap, this was a darker one. I teared up at the ending. I really wanted to see a happy ending for Luke.
July 6, 2022
4.5 stars! This author gut punches me every f’ing time! Love it!! I want more of this story!
June 22, 2015
I just recently found imogenedisease and have loved every one of her stories. I cannot rave enough about all of her main characters, the loveliness of her writing style and the authentic feel of the world she has created. Just lovely.
June 3, 2025
don't mind me reading everything of taylor fitzpatrick's
October 13, 2017
bawled my eyes out
September 18, 2019
Breaking me.
November 6, 2022
I am holding Luke in my hands like a baby bird I want to protect him from everything. Also let mike board niki it’s what we deserve
August 22, 2023
Oy! This hurt like hell.
Thank god for Anders outtakes.
Balance joy with pain.
Thank god for Anders outtakes.
Balance joy with pain.
July 14, 2024
Still crying
Read
September 21, 2024Well, that was devastating.
March 1, 2025
This didn’t give me the same ragged emotions as thrown off the ice but it was close. So fucking sad. So fucking good.
June 1, 2025
Ouch ouch ouch ouch my feelings
(even though the thing that actually got to me the most in the end was the snippet with the immediate aftermath urgh)
(even though the thing that actually got to me the most in the end was the snippet with the immediate aftermath urgh)
November 20, 2024
Woah this was really fucking good. 4.5 stars. Was not expecting that.
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