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tragicgloom's review
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Mental illness, Emotional abuse, Toxic relationship, Eating disorder, Suicidal thoughts, and Sexual content
Moderate: Suicide attempt
Minor: War
scrow1022's review
5.0
Sometimes her books are lovely sweet romances (even if dealing with difficult subjects) and sometimes they just flay me wide open. This was the flay me sort while also picking me up and holding me kind. I do find I have to connect with the MC in my romances and sometimes I can't do that on first reading - I tried this book four years ago and wasn't in the right place for it. But a lot has changed since then and it met me in the exact right spot.
loishojmark's review
5.0
How? How can you love me? How can you, who are so magnificent, love me as I am?
I love the creative milieu in which this series is set. All the tattooist, painters and musicians makes an interesting and diverse group of characters.
The series "Small Change" is set in the Middle of Somewhere universe. I absolutely loved that series and was glad that it continued in a spin off. The first book "Small Change" is MF, but I definitely recommend it to you. Roan Parrish succeeded in writing a MF book without strong gender classification and without many of the floccles that often characterize MF stories.
Since I prefer MM stories, I'm happy that I the sequel, the focus again is on a gay couple as the romantic protagonists.
In book #2 we meet Jude. Jude has fled to his hometown Philadelphia after a failed relationship and a failed suicide attempt. He has been suffering from depressipn since his teen years, and he feels like he failed every person he has been in close contact with ever since. His low self-worth and the depression makes him believe that he is a black hole that sucks in the people who loves him, in until they are drained. Even though he, on one side feels like a failed because he let his ex boyfriend treat him like shit, he uses the same flawed relationship as one of the main "proofs" that he ruins people around him.
He feels like a burden to his family, but mostly to his brother, Christopher.
We met Christopher in "Small Changed" wherein he fell in love with the coolest tattooist, Ginger. As the direct contradiction to Jude's depressive mind, Christopher is an optimistic, hopeful and extremely caring person.
What can ever balance the scales if you’re a black hole of misery that sucks in every scrap of light and turns it to your own material? You can’t climb out of a black hole if you are the hole.
Faron works at Gingers tattoo shop. He is beautiful and Jude is instantly attracted to him. But Jude's low self-esteem makes Faron unattainable to him. Well Jude thinks so. Fortunately Faron doesn't. Farin is very sensitive toward Jude and he gets Jude to relax. But at the same time he is good at taking Jude into account, he also treats him normally. For many years, Jude has become synonymous with depression and his close family is walking on their toes around him. Faron doesn't. He gives him room to be Just-Jude and not the Depressed-Jude.
It would have been easy to make Farin to Judge's ultimate opposition. The light against the darkness. But so I do not see Faron like that.
That would just have created a manic state that swings between two extremes. Two countersides - never on the same side. Faron is more the equalizing factor. He gives Jude peace and time to find himself. Allows him to see something good and beautiful in himself.
I’m not perfect. I don’t want you out of generosity. Or because I’m some kind of angel or savior. I want you because something inside you vibrates just so with something inside me..
A Lot of the MM romance books I've read in the last year centers around a character with some kind of "minor" mental disability. I don't know the real psychological terms but I'm talking about social anxiety disorders, chronich depression, sensitivity, eating disorders, PTSD or Asperger's.
I have not yet come across in a little more serious psychotic disorders, like Schizophrenia, obsessive-compulsive personality disorder or severe autism.
While it lends some realism to the story, it can also be too disturbing to read about or too different to connect and identify with main character with too difficult issues. And in general, it is preferable that the reader in one way or another can move beyond a mere sympathetic and empathetic approach to the protagonists of a romance novel. There must be the mitigating circumstance that allows you to imagine being in a relationship with either or both of the romantic protagonists. Not that I mean that you can NOT be in a well-functioning relationship with a mentally ill person. But I do not think there are many who really dream about and that opt for mental illness. It is something to overcome and live through, not something you choose and looks for. If the story becomes too hard and the illness too severe I'll claim that the book is more fiction than romance. But that is just my personal opinion.
Being someone who has suffered from depression several times since my teenage years, I recognize a lot of Jude's sentiments. My depressions didn't follow the same pattern and I'm not highly sensitive either, but still there are similarities. Especially in the way you see yourself and the way you think other people see you. One of the most descriptive paragraph made me cry. Because there is none as selfish as a depressive person. You know it. You hate it. But you cannot change it.
I don’t mean to be selfish but I am because it takes me so much energy to deal with my own shit sometimes that I don’t have much left over to think about other people.
Invitation to the Blues is a wonderful book. It's a slow burning romance that deals with some heavy shit. And I'm beginning to believe that Parrish is one of the best to do that.
laviestbelle's review
challenging
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
amholling's review
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
emilyrpf's review against another edition
dark
emotional
hopeful
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
heartstrings's review
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
evybird's review against another edition
4.0
4.5 stars. Liked this one even more than Small Change! That cover is particularly bad though...
breadedbookpages's review against another edition
5.0
i received an electronic copy from a novel take pr in exchange for an honest review.
this book deals with a character with depression so a lot of the topics in the book deal with that too.
it's very difficult for me to try and talk about this when it comes to the depression representation but i'll try.
i felt jude's ache. the bits and pieces of how the world kind of closed up on him. how he couldn't even do what he loved anymore. how those feelings came out of nowhere and he felt so bad for having them. i loved that he had good days and bad days and he couldn't separate between them at times and had to be helped. i think what truly affected me was christopher's treatment of jude and how it showed such a big side of christopher's love for jude in this book. i personally have not had a very good experience telling my own family of my depression. and the past months have been so difficult with so many dangerous thoughts going around in my head. but to read about jude and christopher and how this profound balance of how far christopher can and should go to help jude was so heartbreakingly good for me.
i also like that we see so much from faron although jude is the sole narrator in the book. he's the type of person who's difficult to get a read on but he is quite generous with his words, his thoughts, his emotions. i loved the scenes in which they got to know each other, where they were intimate because they felt like they melded into each other in such a perfect way that didn't take from one another. they were separate people but together they became something extraordinary. i was so jealous tbh of jude for having someone like faron but i knew it stemmed from my own wish of wanting that kind of partnership of understanding. they're also quite sweet on each other, they know how to have a good quiet time. i loved the parts where they'd just do things separately but in the same space. it was like sharing comfort together.
the friendships were a big part here as they were in small change too and i loved that daniel and ginger were a key to jude going out more and having friends who aren't kaspar's friends.
sigh i don't want to talk about kaspar. he reminds me too much of my family and how they talked to me about my own depression. it breaks my heart that jude was abused emotionally for so long and how much he internalized it and how it broke him inside even more.
this book reads as a very personal representation and i'm quite honored i got to read it.
this book deals with a character with depression so a lot of the topics in the book deal with that too.
it's very difficult for me to try and talk about this when it comes to the depression representation but i'll try.
i felt jude's ache. the bits and pieces of how the world kind of closed up on him. how he couldn't even do what he loved anymore. how those feelings came out of nowhere and he felt so bad for having them. i loved that he had good days and bad days and he couldn't separate between them at times and had to be helped. i think what truly affected me was christopher's treatment of jude and how it showed such a big side of christopher's love for jude in this book. i personally have not had a very good experience telling my own family of my depression. and the past months have been so difficult with so many dangerous thoughts going around in my head. but to read about jude and christopher and how this profound balance of how far christopher can and should go to help jude was so heartbreakingly good for me.
i also like that we see so much from faron although jude is the sole narrator in the book. he's the type of person who's difficult to get a read on but he is quite generous with his words, his thoughts, his emotions. i loved the scenes in which they got to know each other, where they were intimate because they felt like they melded into each other in such a perfect way that didn't take from one another. they were separate people but together they became something extraordinary. i was so jealous tbh of jude for having someone like faron but i knew it stemmed from my own wish of wanting that kind of partnership of understanding. they're also quite sweet on each other, they know how to have a good quiet time. i loved the parts where they'd just do things separately but in the same space. it was like sharing comfort together.
the friendships were a big part here as they were in small change too and i loved that daniel and ginger were a key to jude going out more and having friends who aren't kaspar's friends.
sigh i don't want to talk about kaspar. he reminds me too much of my family and how they talked to me about my own depression. it breaks my heart that jude was abused emotionally for so long and how much he internalized it and how it broke him inside even more.
this book reads as a very personal representation and i'm quite honored i got to read it.