kimberly_rose’s Reviews > Rules to Live By > Status Update

Entirely underwhelmed by this collection. To be fair, short stories are an incredibly hard sell for me; it's extraordinary rare that I like and am moved by a short. Loved the themes, though.

Cntl Me: kinda weird how sudden and deep they went once he broke up with his girlfriend. Also, Gabe's whole "too many syllables" was such an arrogant douche-y thing to say.

House Rules: extremely short, so I didn't get Emotionally invested. I'm not interested in actors or movies or red carpet award shit, so that was kinda boring, but the dynamic of two men in a long-term, often long-distance relationship was lovely and believable if undesirable for myself. So far, both stories in this collection are only about 2 stars: okay

Here's the line I liked: "I feel like life is passing me by. I have to matter most to someone, even if the only someone I can find is me.”

Master Key: annoyed that this story took up 39% of the book. I usually hate short stories, but I gotta say, this one could've been a hella lot shorter. It had solid bones, I like the freshness of the Dom being the 'receiver,' and there's one beautiful poignant line in it, but for the majority of the time, I wanted it to hurry up and be over. I didn't relate to their obsessive career love whatsoever, either.