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lalexvp's review against another edition
5.0
This series is simply incredible, I can’t wait to read every single thing this author has written.
ennui's review
4.0
I can see some people finding Matt (the main character) frustrating as the book goes on. As someone who struggles a lot with insecurity it feels like this book pulled my worst thought spirals right out of my head.
Matt is a foster kid who grew up with a history of abandonment and trauma; he falls in love and marries Rhys, a giant ball of fiercely radiating sunshine and happiness who will punch everything who wrongs those who loves him. The majority of this book is spent with Matt struggling with his insecurities (I don't deserve him, he's going to leave me) and even while realizing how illogical his insecurities are is unable to stop them from consuming him. It's painfully relatable. Matt fucks up in relatable ways, and they work things out by communicating in mature, adult ways. It's very hard not to engage with and root for these characters.
Matt is a foster kid who grew up with a history of abandonment and trauma; he falls in love and marries Rhys, a giant ball of fiercely radiating sunshine and happiness who will punch everything who wrongs those who loves him. The majority of this book is spent with Matt struggling with his insecurities (I don't deserve him, he's going to leave me) and even while realizing how illogical his insecurities are is unable to stop them from consuming him. It's painfully relatable. Matt fucks up in relatable ways, and they work things out by communicating in mature, adult ways. It's very hard not to engage with and root for these characters.
colorfulleo92's review
5.0
Took me far to long to get to the second audiobook, Rend. Absolutely loved. Cute romance and easy to get invested in the plot
barefootamy's review against another edition
4.0
A welcome follow up to Caleb and Theo's story in the first book of this series. Matt and Rhys have a whirlwind romance but struggle with marriage when Rhys prepares for his first solo tour as a musician. Matt has a whole slew of adverse childhood experiences (ACE) that set him up for feelings of abandonment and being unlovable while Rhys is out of town. The book is a raw narrative of generalized anxiety disorder, and how challenging early married life is in the communication department.
alexisisreading's review against another edition
5.0
(1/1/24 update) just reread this and wow it still slaps, so sad we never got Rhys’ pov tho
—
AHHHHHHHH. I literally don't even know what to say omg. 10/10, claps all around for Matty and Rhys.
That night, for the first time in my life, when I fell asleep, I didn’t wonder if I’d be all alone in the morning. I fell asleep with a kind of dazed happiness that I thought might be monumental, but felt as warm and easy as Rhys’s hand on the back of my neck.
When the book starts Matty and Rhys are already married. We get to see a glimpse at how they met and moments that lead up to them being married but the bulk of this book is focused on the present and how they are currently doing as a married couple. And these two!!!!! Omg. Matty, my beloved. My heart broke the entire time for Matt. Rhys is on tour and Matt just feels so alone. He's not doing well without Rhys and I would imagine that Rhys wasn't doing too well either. I wished we could have gotten Rhys' POV but you know what even that wasn't enough for me to not give this 5 stars.
Sometimes you couldn’t notice how bad things were until something good showed you the difference.
Matt has had a rough go at life. To Matt, Rhys is one of the first good things to happen to him. Because of that he really wants to keep Rhys in the bubble where everything is good and doesn't want to tell him about a lot of his past because he doesn't want to ruin Rhy's perception of the world. Eventually though secrets come out and Rhys and Matt must navigate together how their relationship will progress when there is so much fear.
I really loved these two together. I thought they were perfectly matched. I do really wish we could have gotten Rhys' POV but honestly the whole book being from Matty's POV wasn't a dealbreaker for me. I loved Matty, I loved watching him grow and fall into safety in the fact that he and Rhys could fight and could argue and that didn't automatically mean that Rhys would leave him. Matty finally deciding to let Rhys in was a really beautiful moment in my opinion. Also the possessiveness and spice between these two?? *insert dizzy eye emojis*
“I never thought it was possible to love someone as much as I love you. Like how your brain can’t imagine a color you’ve never seen. I just…I didn’t have the ability to even think of it. And every time I felt more for you, and more, and more, it…it was like I had to break apart the universe and remake it as one where I could love you more.”
Anyway, I really loved this one. More than the first, and I'm exciting to finish this series with the next book!
—
AHHHHHHHH. I literally don't even know what to say omg. 10/10, claps all around for Matty and Rhys.
That night, for the first time in my life, when I fell asleep, I didn’t wonder if I’d be all alone in the morning. I fell asleep with a kind of dazed happiness that I thought might be monumental, but felt as warm and easy as Rhys’s hand on the back of my neck.
When the book starts Matty and Rhys are already married. We get to see a glimpse at how they met and moments that lead up to them being married but the bulk of this book is focused on the present and how they are currently doing as a married couple. And these two!!!!! Omg. Matty, my beloved. My heart broke the entire time for Matt. Rhys is on tour and Matt just feels so alone. He's not doing well without Rhys and I would imagine that Rhys wasn't doing too well either. I wished we could have gotten Rhys' POV but you know what even that wasn't enough for me to not give this 5 stars.
Sometimes you couldn’t notice how bad things were until something good showed you the difference.
Matt has had a rough go at life. To Matt, Rhys is one of the first good things to happen to him. Because of that he really wants to keep Rhys in the bubble where everything is good and doesn't want to tell him about a lot of his past because he doesn't want to ruin Rhy's perception of the world. Eventually though secrets come out and Rhys and Matt must navigate together how their relationship will progress when there is so much fear.
I really loved these two together. I thought they were perfectly matched. I do really wish we could have gotten Rhys' POV but honestly the whole book being from Matty's POV wasn't a dealbreaker for me. I loved Matty, I loved watching him grow and fall into safety in the fact that he and Rhys could fight and could argue and that didn't automatically mean that Rhys would leave him. Matty finally deciding to let Rhys in was a really beautiful moment in my opinion. Also the possessiveness and spice between these two?? *insert dizzy eye emojis*
“I never thought it was possible to love someone as much as I love you. Like how your brain can’t imagine a color you’ve never seen. I just…I didn’t have the ability to even think of it. And every time I felt more for you, and more, and more, it…it was like I had to break apart the universe and remake it as one where I could love you more.”
Anyway, I really loved this one. More than the first, and I'm exciting to finish this series with the next book!
readingwithstardust's review against another edition
2.0
Oof the imbalance here. The desperate need for legitimate mental health care-- therapy, and probably anti-anxiety meds at the very least-- and the fact that neither character even considered that need until almost 90% of the way into the story was exhausting. One significant other does not a support system make, and one cannot just lie away trauma and anxiety.
allisonrw96's review
emotional
hopeful
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
5.0
oliviak_31's review
emotional
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
4.25
ohladysamantha's review
- 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
a worthy read but a challenging one at times. parish does a great job with the subject matter but this marriage in crisis will put you through it! it can be so hard to be in the protagonist's head but really effective.
bookish_notes's review
5.0
This was devastating and hauntingly beautiful. Just when I thought that I was in a reading rut and was never going to read another 5-star book again, I read this in practically all of one day and I AM. IN. LOVE. This story is ANGST but that’s right up my alley, so is it really a surprise how much I winded up loving this book?
Trigger warnings include depression, anxiety, feelings of abandonment, death of a friend and attending the funeral, mentions of child sexual abuse (not the main characters), mentions of abuse, and mentions of finding a kid who died by suicide.
This book deals with heavy topics, and is written in first-person, so do read with care and remember to take care of yourselves if the story gets to be too much.
The story is told entirely from Matt Argento’s perspective. He’s a guy who was raised in the foster care system and has now gotten a job doing something he loves and is very passionate about. His mother is Italian and his father Mexican American. When he meets Rhys Nyland, he thinks no one can be THIS smiley or lovely, but that’s the thing about Rhys. He’s just a genuine man, who also has the body of Thor and a mind for music like you wouldn’t believe.
This book is slightly different from books I usually read. For one, the story starts off when a very long prologue. And I’ve been very vocal about not loving prologues and skipping them altogether. BUT. Because this is a Roan Parrish book, I got sucked in and the prologue is one of the most beautiful pieces I’ve ever read. This is where we see Matt and Rhys meeting for the first time. And by the time the story starts with chapter one, they are married but they haven’t quite found their HEA.
We do find out throughout the book in quiet moments, all the pieces in-between the prologue and the first chapter of how their relationship grew and how they came to be married, and I really loved how everything got pieced together. It works so seamlessly in the text, that I’m just left in awe.
This book is the embodiment of the grumpy/sunshine trope. I dearly love how hard Rhys tried and he’s just such a good person who’s not used to the world being so awful that his imagination can’t even conjure up what that could be. He actually reminds me a lot of Christopher, a character from the author’s SMALL CHANGE book, and we all should know how much I love Christopher so it’s really no surprise how much I fell in love with Rhys here as well.
When you start the book, it’s clear that Matt has a lot on his mind, and his past is a heavy part of his soul that he carries with him always. It’s always lurking in the depths of his mind and even if he’s surrounding by sunshine Rhys, the shadows poke out when Rhys isn’t around. When Rhys finally gets the musical recognition he so very much deserves and gets to go on tour across the country while Matt stays home, the darkness comes out of Matt in full force and takes him into places he thought had been hidden away.
In some ways, I think this book is fitting for readers who loved MISFITS by Garrett Leigh. While there’s no polyam romance here, Matt and Rhys’s relationship reminds me of Tom and Cass and maybe this is what their relationship was like in their early days.
So. I read this book as an arc so I’m not sure if things were changed in the final copy of the book, but I will say a thing that bugged me is how often Noé was introduced in the text like we would forget him the next time we meet him and he had to be reintroduced with his first AND last name again and again. I just found that weird and unnecessary. Also. The part about deporting Matt’s mother as well was strange since I thought to myself, how often does the US deport someone back to Italy?? But that question is answered later in the text and satisfied my ??? on the subject.
I do wish we had more female characters in the book? It wasn’t really noticeable until you realized that all the women in Matt’s past treated him horribly, and the one girl from his past who did seem to care about him somehow winded up dying tragically young. Her story was just so sad and I wish we could have seen her in the text as a friend to Matt in his present-day and, well, not die. The only other women in Matt’s life is his boss and Rhys’s mother.
I don’t remember much from RIVEN since, just from the subject matter and overall angst, was a LOT to read back-to-back with this book. But Theo and Caleb are pretty big players in this book since their lives and Matt and Rhys’s are so intertwined from being good friends with one another. I don’t think it’s necessary to read these books in order but just get the tissue box ready for both their stories because it can be a lot.
Biggest and really only disappointment I have is that this series is only available in digital ebook and audio with no physical copies available for purchase at all. I know the company is digital only but wouldn’t I just kill to have a paperback of this book to read and have on my shelf. I NEED IT.
I’m excited to finally have gotten to read this book and dare I say this is probably now my favorite of all of the author’s books? I can’t wait to read Raze and hopefully see Theo,
Caleb, Matt, and Rhys all show up in that book as well!!
***Thanks to the publisher for approving me for this ARC on NetGalley.***
Trigger warnings include depression, anxiety, feelings of abandonment, death of a friend and attending the funeral, mentions of child sexual abuse (not the main characters), mentions of abuse, and mentions of finding a kid who died by suicide.
This book deals with heavy topics, and is written in first-person, so do read with care and remember to take care of yourselves if the story gets to be too much.
The story is told entirely from Matt Argento’s perspective. He’s a guy who was raised in the foster care system and has now gotten a job doing something he loves and is very passionate about. His mother is Italian and his father Mexican American. When he meets Rhys Nyland, he thinks no one can be THIS smiley or lovely, but that’s the thing about Rhys. He’s just a genuine man, who also has the body of Thor and a mind for music like you wouldn’t believe.
This book is slightly different from books I usually read. For one, the story starts off when a very long prologue. And I’ve been very vocal about not loving prologues and skipping them altogether. BUT. Because this is a Roan Parrish book, I got sucked in and the prologue is one of the most beautiful pieces I’ve ever read. This is where we see Matt and Rhys meeting for the first time. And by the time the story starts with chapter one, they are married but they haven’t quite found their HEA.
We do find out throughout the book in quiet moments, all the pieces in-between the prologue and the first chapter of how their relationship grew and how they came to be married, and I really loved how everything got pieced together. It works so seamlessly in the text, that I’m just left in awe.
This book is the embodiment of the grumpy/sunshine trope. I dearly love how hard Rhys tried and he’s just such a good person who’s not used to the world being so awful that his imagination can’t even conjure up what that could be. He actually reminds me a lot of Christopher, a character from the author’s SMALL CHANGE book, and we all should know how much I love Christopher so it’s really no surprise how much I fell in love with Rhys here as well.
When you start the book, it’s clear that Matt has a lot on his mind, and his past is a heavy part of his soul that he carries with him always. It’s always lurking in the depths of his mind and even if he’s surrounding by sunshine Rhys, the shadows poke out when Rhys isn’t around. When Rhys finally gets the musical recognition he so very much deserves and gets to go on tour across the country while Matt stays home, the darkness comes out of Matt in full force and takes him into places he thought had been hidden away.
In some ways, I think this book is fitting for readers who loved MISFITS by Garrett Leigh. While there’s no polyam romance here, Matt and Rhys’s relationship reminds me of Tom and Cass and maybe this is what their relationship was like in their early days.
So. I read this book as an arc so I’m not sure if things were changed in the final copy of the book, but I will say a thing that bugged me is how often Noé was introduced in the text like we would forget him the next time we meet him and he had to be reintroduced with his first AND last name again and again. I just found that weird and unnecessary. Also. The part about deporting Matt’s mother as well was strange since I thought to myself, how often does the US deport someone back to Italy?? But that question is answered later in the text and satisfied my ??? on the subject.
I do wish we had more female characters in the book? It wasn’t really noticeable until you realized that all the women in Matt’s past treated him horribly, and the one girl from his past who did seem to care about him somehow winded up dying tragically young. Her story was just so sad and I wish we could have seen her in the text as a friend to Matt in his present-day and, well, not die. The only other women in Matt’s life is his boss and Rhys’s mother.
I don’t remember much from RIVEN since, just from the subject matter and overall angst, was a LOT to read back-to-back with this book. But Theo and Caleb are pretty big players in this book since their lives and Matt and Rhys’s are so intertwined from being good friends with one another. I don’t think it’s necessary to read these books in order but just get the tissue box ready for both their stories because it can be a lot.
Biggest and really only disappointment I have is that this series is only available in digital ebook and audio with no physical copies available for purchase at all. I know the company is digital only but wouldn’t I just kill to have a paperback of this book to read and have on my shelf. I NEED IT.
I’m excited to finally have gotten to read this book and dare I say this is probably now my favorite of all of the author’s books? I can’t wait to read Raze and hopefully see Theo,
Caleb, Matt, and Rhys all show up in that book as well!!
***Thanks to the publisher for approving me for this ARC on NetGalley.***