2.5 stars
This one was not for me. It wasn’t the fact that it was a M/M romance. It was the fact that there was no romance at all. This was more of a story of Chet coming out and accepting himself, which was great and what I liked most about the story, than an actual romance. It wouldn’t bother me if it weren’t for the fact this was labeled a romance with no real romance.
I thought this was going to be a forbidden romance thing between stepbrothers where feelings had been building between them for years at a time, but denied what they were feeling because it was forbidden between them because they were step siblings. That was the story I was looking for. That was the story I wanted, instead all it was between Chet and Kenny was one sexual encounter between them that blew up Chet’s world and have him confront the truth about himself, but there were no romantic feelings between them. They didn’t fall in love. They weren’t in love with each other, which made it all the worse in my opinion. It was just sex and nothing more. I didn’t like that.
Before that encounter Chet engaged in escort sex, hiding what he was doing to be with men because he couldn’t accept he was gay and thought he couldn’t be gay because he was the super stud football player so engaged in some reckless behavior to get what he wanted while hiding it away.
I also didn’t care for the fact that there was a threesome in there because me personally I am turned off by threesome scenes especially in a romance. It just a hard limit with me in romance. So, to see that here especially when I was expecting was not a good thing and not a happy surprise. I even had to skim over that part because it just turned me off so much.
Another thing I didn’t care for Chet until the ver less chapter. I get he was ashamed of who he was and not accepting he was gay so he put on that jerk, jock persona, but I didn’t care for it and he just came off as a douche. I could sympathize what he was going through and get why he was tortured for most of the story, but I still didn’t like the guy.
I did like that he did finally come to accept himself in the end. I liked seeing his transformation. I liked that he grew up finally and realizing he had to be who he was and not fit into that stereotypical mold he was trying to fit in. It just made him miserable end. So, the story did have a pay off in the end, but not the one I expected or wanted.
This was no way a romance, which was what I was looking for. I haven’t read a lot of M/M romances, but I wanted to try one and this seemed like an interesting one with the whole forbidden step sibling format, which is a trope I do enjoy so I thought this would be a good way to get into a M/M romance, but it wasn’t anything the angsty, forbidden romance I was expecting in fact there was little romance whatsoever. To me it just felt like a misinterpretation of what it was. I think if it was labeled just as a story with two gay characters as they navigated their lives without the romance played up, I think I would have enjoyed it a lot more. I think if it was even labeled just as erotica then I wouldn’t have expected any romantic elements and just it to be more of a smutty read than anything else that way I would have been prepared for what was to come, or I might have passed by it altogether because that wasn’t what I was looking for. I’m a little picky when it comes to my reading life. This one just wasn’t for me.