Scan barcode
cindaren's review
3.0
Derek was a dick in this book which was disappointing because Derek's book was the first one I read due to that beautiful cover model. The love interest (I can't recall his name) kept wondering why the MC (can't recall his name either) had such low self-esteem about his looks and yes it was partly due to his ex but also partly due to his so-called bff constantly telling him he was average-looking. It didn't come across as cute or sassy, just mean, and it never got addressed. It was very off-putting.
Also a lot of the dialogue was cheesy and stilted but I've come to expect that from Devon McCormack. Riley Hart is sometimes amazing and sometimes meh but always worth a shot imo.
Just my opinion. YMMV.
Also a lot of the dialogue was cheesy and stilted but I've come to expect that from Devon McCormack. Riley Hart is sometimes amazing and sometimes meh but always worth a shot imo.
Just my opinion. YMMV.
geo_ix's review
3.0
This book had lots of good parts and a few questionable ones.
The first bit I didn’t like was the tower situation. It’s basically two connecting apartment buildings that seems to have only gay men living in them? I think it said something like ‘nearly everyone was a gay man’ or something, also connects to my other, that apart from parents, I don’t actually remember even one line uttered by a female? Neither main character had any female friends (one had someone he worked with but there was no interaction with her). It just seemed to stand out more and more as it went on, and I guess it seemed weird because of the apartment thing too.
I did enjoy the characters, I think there was room for a little more angst because these two were a little angst but I never felt that gut clenching feeling apart from that one scene where Travis asks if he did something wrong (best emotional scene in the book).
The scene where Gary confronts Travis’s parents was a little too TV drama for me. It came across like a high schooler giving an adult a big angst filled speech and I don’t really feel it was necessary even if it made Travis fall more in love.
The steaminess of the book was alright, nothing particularly blazing not to me, but there was a nice little burn.
The ex drama was annoying. Every time he came into a scene I was dying. These guys are nearly 30. It’s so juvenile, jealousy or alpha vibes or not, the interactions were mind numbingly dumb.
But overall I really did like reading this. It was SUPER quick. Only took around 4ish hours to read. It was fun. I would have liked a little more emotion, but overall a great book.
The first bit I didn’t like was the tower situation. It’s basically two connecting apartment buildings that seems to have only gay men living in them? I think it said something like ‘nearly everyone was a gay man’ or something, also connects to my other, that apart from parents, I don’t actually remember even one line uttered by a female? Neither main character had any female friends (one had someone he worked with but there was no interaction with her). It just seemed to stand out more and more as it went on, and I guess it seemed weird because of the apartment thing too.
I did enjoy the characters, I think there was room for a little more angst because these two were a little angst but I never felt that gut clenching feeling apart from that one scene where Travis asks if he did something wrong (best emotional scene in the book).
The scene where Gary confronts Travis’s parents was a little too TV drama for me. It came across like a high schooler giving an adult a big angst filled speech and I don’t really feel it was necessary even if it made Travis fall more in love.
The steaminess of the book was alright, nothing particularly blazing not to me, but there was a nice little burn.
The ex drama was annoying. Every time he came into a scene I was dying. These guys are nearly 30. It’s so juvenile, jealousy or alpha vibes or not, the interactions were mind numbingly dumb.
But overall I really did like reading this. It was SUPER quick. Only took around 4ish hours to read. It was fun. I would have liked a little more emotion, but overall a great book.
roryta86reads's review
4.0
Fun, engaging, great characters and chemistry. And as always the narrator is amazing. I loved how Travis and Gary found their way to each other
fuzzywilson's review
lighthearted
relaxing
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcohol, Cursing, Infidelity, Outing, Religious bigotry, and Sexual content
loishojmark's review against another edition
3.0
Dont know if I'll read the next book. I must conclude that I'm just not into Riley Hart´s writing. I hoped that McCormack would it better and more interesting, but alas
brittaddictedtobooks's review
3.5
This was cute but the writing wasn't great. It was just missing something. I may read some more of the series when I need something that I know will be easy and mindless.
jj7twin's review against another edition
5.0
This was just as cute as I thought it would be.
Don't get me wrong, there's also harsh language and graphic sex scenes (major bonuses) but the heart of this was about love. New love that came from one of the most over-the-top lies that just to happened to pan out for both parties. Maybe it's just me but I still don't see how people have serious does with cheaters. You were the side piece for years and then his boyfriend finds out. Not your secret loved told him, he found out. If Peter hasn't been caught would Even have been happy staying a secret? I don't think so but I will not be fully satisfied if I don't hear about a Peter a Evan major fight/breakup in the rest of this series. Once a cheater always a cheater (even if he does t physically cheat he's emotionally or mentally cheating.
Don't get me wrong, there's also harsh language and graphic sex scenes (major bonuses) but the heart of this was about love. New love that came from one of the most over-the-top lies that just to happened to pan out for both parties. Maybe it's just me but I still don't see how people have serious does with cheaters. You were the side piece for years and then his boyfriend finds out. Not your secret loved told him, he found out. If Peter hasn't been caught would Even have been happy staying a secret? I don't think so but I will not be fully satisfied if I don't hear about a Peter a Evan major fight/breakup in the rest of this series. Once a cheater always a cheater (even if he does t physically cheat he's emotionally or mentally cheating.
haletostilinski1's review against another edition
1.0
1.5 stars
Welp...I think I knew I wasn't going to enjoy this book from the start.
I should have stayed away from this, because the one Devon McCormack book I've read I really didn't like that much, but with Riley Hart's name attached to it, I hoped beyond hope that she would save any...well, any fuck ups that McCormack would make.
But, that didn't happen.
This was like, a textbook rom-com book. The ONLY redeeming quality to this book was that Travis and Gary were sweet, good guys. But even they were pretty one dimensional, which just angered me because their characters had SO much potential.
But man, I love the next fake-relationship book like the next person - I adore that trope, honestly. But this book did it all wrong.
It was filled with cliché thoughts and dialogue, with phrases, and the situations were so cliché they were cringeworthy for me. The "drama" was extremely contrived, too.
It was annoying how many times the characters said "sure as shit" and "sure as fuck" and "sure as hell." There's a reason in my classes I'm always told not to be repetitive in my writing. Because repetitiveness is really fucking annoying.
And the amount of times Gary and Travis think such obvious fucking things. Like you do not need to tell the readers these things! It's easy enough to figure out for ourselves! Also, a TON of telling in this book. A TON. The book wasn't terribly long - there were times when they could have included or extended a scene to give us more, more with Gary and Travis and more about their lives. I didn't even know what Gary did for a living until well into the book.
Also, I didn't need to be told over and over about how Peter's such a jackass. We're told he's a jackass before we ever see him. And what a stock asshole character he was. He had absolutely no depth to him. Hell, basically all the characters in this book had no depth to them, no complexity. Peter was just the asshole cheating ex who is smarmy and hypocritical and loves to stand on his high horse when he never earned that. He was SO fucking easy to hate. Like, I would hate any cheating asshole, of course, but giving Peter complexity would be giving us a reason why he cheated, even if it was stupid and shallow, and giving him more than stupid ~twist my mustache because I'm an evil villain~ lines? Even cheating assholes are humans with complex emotions and wants and desires, even if they did the wrong thing, even if they aren't remorseful.
If Peter was such a big part of Gary's life, if Gary was so "heartbroken" (hint: he really really wasn't. He just seemed to think he was) of Peter, then why didn't we get a long speech from Peter, as horrible as it would be, about why he had a two-year affair (with a guy that lived in the same apartment complex as him and Gary and Gary didn't fucking know for two years? Uh HUH) and why he did what he did. Even if it was a "I got bored with you" which would definitely make me hate him, but at LEAST I would know WHY he did it. We never got a why from him, just the general picture painted by Gary that he cheated, so he's an asshole. But if we barely get anything in depth with Peter, even if it's to figure out we hate him, then he's just kinda...there, and he could have been replaced with a cardboard cut out of himself and it wouldn't have made a difference in the story. Peter was a prop to add some drama, to put Gary and Travis in the situation they were in, and it was obvious.
Not only were Gary and Travis not given enough depth, and they were the MC's (!!!!) but the secondary characters? Fuck, they all barely had their own autonomy. They were all basically props to forward Gary and Travis' story along. And that's not what you want your secondary characters to be. Yeah, they're there in romantic stories to mostly compliment the MC's, but they don't have to be there just to prop up the MC's, and be in the story FOR them. They should be in the story WITH them. UGH.
The book even had the tried and true line "we feel so far apart - even if it's only a few feet" like he's saying "there was an ocean between us even though we were standing two feet from each other" like...really???
And Gary's reasons for not telling his parents that he was gay were weak and stupid. And it was made into such a big thing throughout the whole book and his whole coming out scene with them lasted like a page, two pages? His parents were there to be "worried" a few times and be sad that their son never told them anything about himself - even though they never even really tried to get him to talk to them. Asking "so how's life?" won't get your son to open up. That's not addressing the problem.
And Travis was your typical "my family was horrible to me and I look at their example and their marriage sucks so why would I want love or marriage, blegh" like that is the oldest trope for characters in the book. Travis never wanted love even though he'd never even tried to have love. And it definitely wasn't a "wired differently" thing as Gary kept thinking. This wasn't because Travis just isn't into monogamous relationships, or relationships at all, for that matter. It was because he was scared of getting hurt. Gary was scared of being hurt. Everyone's scared of being hurt.
But Gary's a relationship guy and he couldn't handle casual sex. Gary wanted more, but the minute he has more, he...gets scared of having it? That felt a tad ridiculous to me.
And their little "fight" that "broke them up" near the end was so contrived I can't...I fucking can't. I knew from the beginning that since Peter cheated on Gary that some instance would be brought up where it made it seem like Travis could have cheated on him too. So predictable.
And I actually like when, if a character was cheated on, they're scared their new partner will cheat - in fact it bothers me sometimes when characters who were cheated on don't seem insecure and worried about that. I feel like it's natural to be scared of that. But to bring up Gary's insecurities on that in such a contrived way was so ridiculous it pissed me off.
And Gary was being completely unreasonable with Travis, but he barely took any responsibility for assuming with Travis? In the end it basically turned out that it was all Travis' fault for "giving up" and "walking away"
Again, this stuff, if written well, can be incredibly interesting. But when you rush through scenes and give cliché dialogue and thoughts and give perfunctory sex scenes that are rushed and barely stir anything in me while reading, it falls extremely flat.
Also, skipping ahead a few weeks, having stuff happen, then skipping a few more weeks annoyed the crap out of me. Like, give us a few scenes of them together, just getting to know each other, in the weeks where the big events aren't happening. Give us their build up. We're missing the foundation of their relationship and it's frustrating.
This book was like...those cheesy hetero rom-com blockbusters that have no substance and are only made to make some money. They don't care about the story, they care about the money, so they dole out the perfunctory rom-com story, compete with every romance trope their is.
That is this book.
After this long ass rant, I'm obviously giving this a big thumbs down. It's not worth the wasted time reading it. Sucks, because in the hands of maybe just Riley Hart alone, or even a better writer (I love Riley Hart, but I do think their are better writers out there) Travis and Gary could have been amazing characters with an awesome love story.
Instead, we got...whatever this book was.
Welp...I think I knew I wasn't going to enjoy this book from the start.
I should have stayed away from this, because the one Devon McCormack book I've read I really didn't like that much, but with Riley Hart's name attached to it, I hoped beyond hope that she would save any...well, any fuck ups that McCormack would make.
But, that didn't happen.
This was like, a textbook rom-com book. The ONLY redeeming quality to this book was that Travis and Gary were sweet, good guys. But even they were pretty one dimensional, which just angered me because their characters had SO much potential.
But man, I love the next fake-relationship book like the next person - I adore that trope, honestly. But this book did it all wrong.
It was filled with cliché thoughts and dialogue, with phrases, and the situations were so cliché they were cringeworthy for me. The "drama" was extremely contrived, too.
It was annoying how many times the characters said "sure as shit" and "sure as fuck" and "sure as hell." There's a reason in my classes I'm always told not to be repetitive in my writing. Because repetitiveness is really fucking annoying.
And the amount of times Gary and Travis think such obvious fucking things. Like you do not need to tell the readers these things! It's easy enough to figure out for ourselves! Also, a TON of telling in this book. A TON. The book wasn't terribly long - there were times when they could have included or extended a scene to give us more, more with Gary and Travis and more about their lives. I didn't even know what Gary did for a living until well into the book.
Also, I didn't need to be told over and over about how Peter's such a jackass. We're told he's a jackass before we ever see him. And what a stock asshole character he was. He had absolutely no depth to him. Hell, basically all the characters in this book had no depth to them, no complexity. Peter was just the asshole cheating ex who is smarmy and hypocritical and loves to stand on his high horse when he never earned that. He was SO fucking easy to hate. Like, I would hate any cheating asshole, of course, but giving Peter complexity would be giving us a reason why he cheated, even if it was stupid and shallow, and giving him more than stupid ~twist my mustache because I'm an evil villain~ lines? Even cheating assholes are humans with complex emotions and wants and desires, even if they did the wrong thing, even if they aren't remorseful.
If Peter was such a big part of Gary's life, if Gary was so "heartbroken" (hint: he really really wasn't. He just seemed to think he was) of Peter, then why didn't we get a long speech from Peter, as horrible as it would be, about why he had a two-year affair (with a guy that lived in the same apartment complex as him and Gary and Gary didn't fucking know for two years? Uh HUH) and why he did what he did. Even if it was a "I got bored with you" which would definitely make me hate him, but at LEAST I would know WHY he did it. We never got a why from him, just the general picture painted by Gary that he cheated, so he's an asshole. But if we barely get anything in depth with Peter, even if it's to figure out we hate him, then he's just kinda...there, and he could have been replaced with a cardboard cut out of himself and it wouldn't have made a difference in the story. Peter was a prop to add some drama, to put Gary and Travis in the situation they were in, and it was obvious.
Not only were Gary and Travis not given enough depth, and they were the MC's (!!!!) but the secondary characters? Fuck, they all barely had their own autonomy. They were all basically props to forward Gary and Travis' story along. And that's not what you want your secondary characters to be. Yeah, they're there in romantic stories to mostly compliment the MC's, but they don't have to be there just to prop up the MC's, and be in the story FOR them. They should be in the story WITH them. UGH.
The book even had the tried and true line "we feel so far apart - even if it's only a few feet" like he's saying "there was an ocean between us even though we were standing two feet from each other" like...really???
And Gary's reasons for not telling his parents that he was gay were weak and stupid. And it was made into such a big thing throughout the whole book and his whole coming out scene with them lasted like a page, two pages? His parents were there to be "worried" a few times and be sad that their son never told them anything about himself - even though they never even really tried to get him to talk to them. Asking "so how's life?" won't get your son to open up. That's not addressing the problem.
And Travis was your typical "my family was horrible to me and I look at their example and their marriage sucks so why would I want love or marriage, blegh" like that is the oldest trope for characters in the book. Travis never wanted love even though he'd never even tried to have love. And it definitely wasn't a "wired differently" thing as Gary kept thinking. This wasn't because Travis just isn't into monogamous relationships, or relationships at all, for that matter. It was because he was scared of getting hurt. Gary was scared of being hurt. Everyone's scared of being hurt.
But Gary's a relationship guy and he couldn't handle casual sex. Gary wanted more, but the minute he has more, he...gets scared of having it? That felt a tad ridiculous to me.
And their little "fight" that "broke them up" near the end was so contrived I can't...I fucking can't. I knew from the beginning that since Peter cheated on Gary that some instance would be brought up where it made it seem like Travis could have cheated on him too. So predictable.
And I actually like when, if a character was cheated on, they're scared their new partner will cheat - in fact it bothers me sometimes when characters who were cheated on don't seem insecure and worried about that. I feel like it's natural to be scared of that. But to bring up Gary's insecurities on that in such a contrived way was so ridiculous it pissed me off.
And Gary was being completely unreasonable with Travis, but he barely took any responsibility for assuming with Travis? In the end it basically turned out that it was all Travis' fault for "giving up" and "walking away"
Again, this stuff, if written well, can be incredibly interesting. But when you rush through scenes and give cliché dialogue and thoughts and give perfunctory sex scenes that are rushed and barely stir anything in me while reading, it falls extremely flat.
Also, skipping ahead a few weeks, having stuff happen, then skipping a few more weeks annoyed the crap out of me. Like, give us a few scenes of them together, just getting to know each other, in the weeks where the big events aren't happening. Give us their build up. We're missing the foundation of their relationship and it's frustrating.
This book was like...those cheesy hetero rom-com blockbusters that have no substance and are only made to make some money. They don't care about the story, they care about the money, so they dole out the perfunctory rom-com story, compete with every romance trope their is.
That is this book.
After this long ass rant, I'm obviously giving this a big thumbs down. It's not worth the wasted time reading it. Sucks, because in the hands of maybe just Riley Hart alone, or even a better writer (I love Riley Hart, but I do think their are better writers out there) Travis and Gary could have been amazing characters with an awesome love story.
Instead, we got...whatever this book was.