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arickman's review against another edition
4.0
I listened to the audio version. I really enjoyed the narrator and the story was very good. I'll be checking out more books in this series and by this author.
arm167's review
adventurous
challenging
emotional
hopeful
lighthearted
relaxing
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
dith_kusu's review
5.0
4.5 stars. From my impression weeks after reading it, this was my favorite of the series. Just because this was different, a scenario I'd not really read before in M/M romance, and was really well-rounded. I found the characterizations very dimensional and believable, and really rooted for them individually as people aside from their romance. The previous couples appearing here were also nice.
I was not expecting the story to head in the direction it did early on in the second chapter, and the way the author presented Ryan and Josiah's initial airplane seat buddies meet-cute to introducing us readers and Josiah to Ryan's full person was good. Throughout the story, I found that I adjusted my own previously unknown expectations and biases of what active military people, double amputees, those with disabilities or having gone through a traumatic experience would be like, and it was both humbling and interesting.
At the same time, Ryan wasn't solely just defined as a Double Amputee with his condition being very recent and him having to adjust to his new reality. He was also a fully-fleshed out person within the story and his journey was just a part of who he was, and his situation when he met Josiah and they fell into their unexpected friendship and courtship. I felt for Ryan, this take-charge leader who feels responsible for the incident that led to his amputee status and his men being killed, and how he hadn't processed his feelings yet and just wanted to keep moving. He wanted to get up on his own (prosthetic) feet as quickly as possible to qualify for duty again, be a trainer and still have that Marine identity to define him and seek redemption. The environment around his military life and his rehab support system was interesting and provided another immersive world aside from Josiah's established-to-us gamer world too.
Josiah also was given more depth than being just the motormouth office gossip, young and rather excitable guy. I appreciated here that he didn't always know what the right thing was to say, and more than once stuck his foot in his mouth even when first meeting Ryan- goes to show that first impressions can be overcome! As the reader I'm more similar to him, and I felt for him in that he's a technical now-adult who still hasn't fully left the nest, and is still figuring out the whole adulting process. He's had a more easy-going life at it than Ryan, who is older with life experience and also just from going through WAR and having been a leader. But I liked here that Josiah is also in the process of stepping up as a leader at his own workplace, and his experiences of becoming a manager and dealing with people is one that I could semi-relate to.
Ultimately I also really liked that Josiah stepped up and knew what he was worth and what he deserved, that Ryan wasn't seeing him as his own person but had just wanted a project that he could fix-- and Josiah was strong and brave enough to say no to this, despite his feelings for Ryan. While Josiah is younger and less mature, he holds up to Ryan and is an equal partner, he's always seen Ryan as a full human being and romantic, sexual being where others (like Ryan's ex) would think he was now broken, and that's lovely. The juxtaposition of them being opposites, physically and also with their circle of friends being tough military and geeky gamers, was also a really fun dynamic, and it's sweet that they bond through their similar interests like gaming, and they can fit into each other's worlds.
Any issues with the storyline and writing style are similar to those of the previous books, where the story can kind of drift and there's passing passages of time, there can be narration of them just pining over each other very early on-- but here I found their relationship progression, their continued bromance to ambiguous romance over long-distance, the most realistic out of the bunch.
I was not expecting the story to head in the direction it did early on in the second chapter, and the way the author presented Ryan and Josiah's initial airplane seat buddies meet-cute to introducing us readers and Josiah to Ryan's full person was good. Throughout the story, I found that I adjusted my own previously unknown expectations and biases of what active military people, double amputees, those with disabilities or having gone through a traumatic experience would be like, and it was both humbling and interesting.
At the same time, Ryan wasn't solely just defined as a Double Amputee with his condition being very recent and him having to adjust to his new reality. He was also a fully-fleshed out person within the story and his journey was just a part of who he was, and his situation when he met Josiah and they fell into their unexpected friendship and courtship. I felt for Ryan, this take-charge leader who feels responsible for the incident that led to his amputee status and his men being killed, and how he hadn't processed his feelings yet and just wanted to keep moving. He wanted to get up on his own (prosthetic) feet as quickly as possible to qualify for duty again, be a trainer and still have that Marine identity to define him and seek redemption. The environment around his military life and his rehab support system was interesting and provided another immersive world aside from Josiah's established-to-us gamer world too.
Josiah also was given more depth than being just the motormouth office gossip, young and rather excitable guy. I appreciated here that he didn't always know what the right thing was to say, and more than once stuck his foot in his mouth even when first meeting Ryan- goes to show that first impressions can be overcome! As the reader I'm more similar to him, and I felt for him in that he's a technical now-adult who still hasn't fully left the nest, and is still figuring out the whole adulting process. He's had a more easy-going life at it than Ryan, who is older with life experience and also just from going through WAR and having been a leader. But I liked here that Josiah is also in the process of stepping up as a leader at his own workplace, and his experiences of becoming a manager and dealing with people is one that I could semi-relate to.
Ultimately I also really liked that Josiah stepped up and knew what he was worth and what he deserved, that Ryan wasn't seeing him as his own person but had just wanted a project that he could fix-- and Josiah was strong and brave enough to say no to this, despite his feelings for Ryan. While Josiah is younger and less mature, he holds up to Ryan and is an equal partner, he's always seen Ryan as a full human being and romantic, sexual being where others (like Ryan's ex) would think he was now broken, and that's lovely. The juxtaposition of them being opposites, physically and also with their circle of friends being tough military and geeky gamers, was also a really fun dynamic, and it's sweet that they bond through their similar interests like gaming, and they can fit into each other's worlds.
Any issues with the storyline and writing style are similar to those of the previous books, where the story can kind of drift and there's passing passages of time, there can be narration of them just pining over each other very early on-- but here I found their relationship progression, their continued bromance to ambiguous romance over long-distance, the most realistic out of the bunch.
bfdbookblog's review
5.0
I have loved this series, but this is hands down the best book in it. This book has everything I love in a story! And who would have thought to put a recently injured, PTSD riddled double amputee with an ADHD super geek? Well, Ms. Albert did and they are so, so perfect together. I always love seeing such a broken, ex-military man become whole again. Ms. Albert hit a triple with this book for me as I’m a Navy brat from San Diego, I have an ADHD kid and I’m in IT. And once I picked this book up, there was no way I could put it down.
Ryan is an absolute mess, not that he’ll let anyone see that. He’s living with guilt, depression and PTSD and living in denial by thinking his life will go back to normal. And all that makes him grumpy and he feels unnecessary and unwanted. He’s pretty much blindsided by Josiah and doesn’t quite know what to do with him. But I absolutely love that the chaos and disorder in Josiah’s world actually has a calming effect on Ryan. Josiah is just a little bit of a mess. His ADHD leaves him scattered and extremely exuberant. He feels stupid and inadequate. He’s trying to prove himself to the world and no one thinks he can be the adult he’s striving to be. Ryan’s belief in him and his strength (even though most of it is for show) gives Josiah the strength he needs to believe in himself and prove to everyone else that he can be everything he needs to be…on his own. His out of control personality thrives under Ryan’s controlled personality. They are truly exact opposites that are perfectly made for each other.
There is some pain in this book. I was brought to tears a couple of times. But there is so much goodness that it absolutely is a must read.
We get a few glimpses of previous characters and I’m guessing the next book will be about Kyle and Pike so that should be interesting as neither character really endeared themselves to me. I can’t wait to see what Ms. Albert has for us in the next one!
Ryan is an absolute mess, not that he’ll let anyone see that. He’s living with guilt, depression and PTSD and living in denial by thinking his life will go back to normal. And all that makes him grumpy and he feels unnecessary and unwanted. He’s pretty much blindsided by Josiah and doesn’t quite know what to do with him. But I absolutely love that the chaos and disorder in Josiah’s world actually has a calming effect on Ryan. Josiah is just a little bit of a mess. His ADHD leaves him scattered and extremely exuberant. He feels stupid and inadequate. He’s trying to prove himself to the world and no one thinks he can be the adult he’s striving to be. Ryan’s belief in him and his strength (even though most of it is for show) gives Josiah the strength he needs to believe in himself and prove to everyone else that he can be everything he needs to be…on his own. His out of control personality thrives under Ryan’s controlled personality. They are truly exact opposites that are perfectly made for each other.
There is some pain in this book. I was brought to tears a couple of times. But there is so much goodness that it absolutely is a must read.
We get a few glimpses of previous characters and I’m guessing the next book will be about Kyle and Pike so that should be interesting as neither character really endeared themselves to me. I can’t wait to see what Ms. Albert has for us in the next one!
acdom's review
4.0
I think this is my favorite of the #gaymers series. Josiah is so sweet and bumbling and oh man was I happy to be back in the world of Navy SEALs with Ryan.
kindleandbook's review
5.0
My favorite of the three books. Loved it! Loved the entire series. Narration by Sean Crisden was great!
cadiva's review
5.0
My favourite of the three. I'm a sucker for military men and hurting ones in needed of finding the right person to comfort them is my kryptonite.
I also loved that the other MC in this story is someone living with ADHD, and the sympathetic and brutally truthful way Annabeth Albert deals with both these men's disabilities makes this book a little more real but no less a romantic journey.
Sex is also dealt with with an honesty that throws the spotlight on how a profound life changing incident can make someone lose all sense of who they are and how they used to be. For Navy SEAL Ryan, it means not only facing months of rehab, but also having to find how to be a sexually active gay man again.
With some beautifully crafted scenes and a little bit of Josiah's innate inability to cut through the bull and just say what he's thinking, their relationship slowly grows and changes from Ryan feeling like he can't desert the younger man who he helped out when they got stuck with a cancelled flight into a friendship which is both soothing and stimulating.
It's difficult to pin just what made this book so good for me, there isn't a lot of steam in it, although there are a couple of very hot sessions, but there is a real sense of a relationship slowly blossoming from a chance encounter into a partnership of equals and the lodestone on which each man is able to lean on the other.
Plus it had ridiculously cute Labrador puppy Gracie, two wonderfully sympathetic mothers and the same madcap setting and secondary characters as the first two.
Will we get Pike and Zack next perhaps?
I also loved that the other MC in this story is someone living with ADHD, and the sympathetic and brutally truthful way Annabeth Albert deals with both these men's disabilities makes this book a little more real but no less a romantic journey.
Sex is also dealt with with an honesty that throws the spotlight on how a profound life changing incident can make someone lose all sense of who they are and how they used to be. For Navy SEAL Ryan, it means not only facing months of rehab, but also having to find how to be a sexually active gay man again.
With some beautifully crafted scenes and a little bit of Josiah's innate inability to cut through the bull and just say what he's thinking, their relationship slowly grows and changes from Ryan feeling like he can't desert the younger man who he helped out when they got stuck with a cancelled flight into a friendship which is both soothing and stimulating.
It's difficult to pin just what made this book so good for me, there isn't a lot of steam in it, although there are a couple of very hot sessions, but there is a real sense of a relationship slowly blossoming from a chance encounter into a partnership of equals and the lodestone on which each man is able to lean on the other.
Plus it had ridiculously cute Labrador puppy Gracie, two wonderfully sympathetic mothers and the same madcap setting and secondary characters as the first two.
Will we get Pike and Zack next perhaps?
dithkusu's review
5.0
4.5 stars. From my impression weeks after reading it, this was my favorite of the series. Just because this was different, a scenario I'd not really read before in M/M romance, and was really well-rounded. I found the characterizations very dimensional and believable, and really rooted for them individually as people aside from their romance. The previous couples appearing here were also nice.
I was not expecting the story to head in the direction it did early on in the second chapter, and the way the author presented Ryan and Josiah's initial airplane seat buddies meet-cute to introducing us readers and Josiah to Ryan's full person was good. Throughout the story, I found that I adjusted my own previously unknown expectations and biases of what active military people, double amputees, those with disabilities or having gone through a traumatic experience would be like, and it was both humbling and interesting.
At the same time, Ryan wasn't solely just defined as a Double Amputee with his condition being very recent and him having to adjust to his new reality. He was also a fully-fleshed out person within the story and his journey was just a part of who he was, and his situation when he met Josiah and they fell into their unexpected friendship and courtship. I felt for Ryan, this take-charge leader who feels responsible for the incident that led to his amputee status and his men being killed, and how he hadn't processed his feelings yet and just wanted to keep moving. He wanted to get up on his own (prosthetic) feet as quickly as possible to qualify for duty again, be a trainer and still have that Marine identity to define him and seek redemption. The environment around his military life and his rehab support system was interesting and provided another immersive world aside from Josiah's established-to-us gamer world too.
Josiah also was given more depth than being just the motormouth office gossip, young and rather excitable guy. I appreciated here that he didn't always know what the right thing was to say, and more than once stuck his foot in his mouth even when first meeting Ryan- goes to show that first impressions can be overcome! As the reader I'm more similar to him, and I felt for him in that he's a technical now-adult who still hasn't fully left the nest, and is still figuring out the whole adulting process. He's had a more easy-going life at it than Ryan, who is older with life experience and also just from going through WAR and having been a leader. But I liked here that Josiah is also in the process of stepping up as a leader at his own workplace, and his experiences of becoming a manager and dealing with people is one that I could semi-relate to.
Ultimately I also really liked that Josiah stepped up and knew what he was worth and what he deserved, that Ryan wasn't seeing him as his own person but had just wanted a project that he could fix-- and Josiah was strong and brave enough to say no to this, despite his feelings for Ryan. While Josiah is younger and less mature, he holds up to Ryan and is an equal partner, he's always seen Ryan as a full human being and romantic, sexual being where others (like Ryan's ex) would think he was now broken, and that's lovely. The juxtaposition of them being opposites, physically and also with their circle of friends being tough military and geeky gamers, was also a really fun dynamic, and it's sweet that they bond through their similar interests like gaming, and they can fit into each other's worlds.
Any issues with the storyline and writing style are similar to those of the previous books, where the story can kind of drift and there's passing passages of time, there can be narration of them just pining over each other very early on-- but here I found their relationship progression, their continued bromance to ambiguous romance over long-distance, the most realistic out of the bunch.
I was not expecting the story to head in the direction it did early on in the second chapter, and the way the author presented Ryan and Josiah's initial airplane seat buddies meet-cute to introducing us readers and Josiah to Ryan's full person was good. Throughout the story, I found that I adjusted my own previously unknown expectations and biases of what active military people, double amputees, those with disabilities or having gone through a traumatic experience would be like, and it was both humbling and interesting.
At the same time, Ryan wasn't solely just defined as a Double Amputee with his condition being very recent and him having to adjust to his new reality. He was also a fully-fleshed out person within the story and his journey was just a part of who he was, and his situation when he met Josiah and they fell into their unexpected friendship and courtship. I felt for Ryan, this take-charge leader who feels responsible for the incident that led to his amputee status and his men being killed, and how he hadn't processed his feelings yet and just wanted to keep moving. He wanted to get up on his own (prosthetic) feet as quickly as possible to qualify for duty again, be a trainer and still have that Marine identity to define him and seek redemption. The environment around his military life and his rehab support system was interesting and provided another immersive world aside from Josiah's established-to-us gamer world too.
Josiah also was given more depth than being just the motormouth office gossip, young and rather excitable guy. I appreciated here that he didn't always know what the right thing was to say, and more than once stuck his foot in his mouth even when first meeting Ryan- goes to show that first impressions can be overcome! As the reader I'm more similar to him, and I felt for him in that he's a technical now-adult who still hasn't fully left the nest, and is still figuring out the whole adulting process. He's had a more easy-going life at it than Ryan, who is older with life experience and also just from going through WAR and having been a leader. But I liked here that Josiah is also in the process of stepping up as a leader at his own workplace, and his experiences of becoming a manager and dealing with people is one that I could semi-relate to.
Ultimately I also really liked that Josiah stepped up and knew what he was worth and what he deserved, that Ryan wasn't seeing him as his own person but had just wanted a project that he could fix-- and Josiah was strong and brave enough to say no to this, despite his feelings for Ryan. While Josiah is younger and less mature, he holds up to Ryan and is an equal partner, he's always seen Ryan as a full human being and romantic, sexual being where others (like Ryan's ex) would think he was now broken, and that's lovely. The juxtaposition of them being opposites, physically and also with their circle of friends being tough military and geeky gamers, was also a really fun dynamic, and it's sweet that they bond through their similar interests like gaming, and they can fit into each other's worlds.
Any issues with the storyline and writing style are similar to those of the previous books, where the story can kind of drift and there's passing passages of time, there can be narration of them just pining over each other very early on-- but here I found their relationship progression, their continued bromance to ambiguous romance over long-distance, the most realistic out of the bunch.