A review by endemictoearth
Resilience on Canvas by Logan Sage Adams

adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful sad 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

4.75

This is the third book I've read from Adams, and might be my favorite so far. (I don't know, though, Jeff and Gary are also faves . . . )

This book is tough to read sometimes, but not for the reasons you might think. The descriptions of the dirt storms that ravaged the Oklahoma landscape and drove whole towns full of people out because of the devastation, that's hard to read about them dealing with day in and day out. Even when Robert's

good-for-nothing father dies, it didn't go as I expected. And the reality of dealing with that in a time when the family has literally nothing yet still wants to honor him with a proper burial

. . . it was just hard.

Since most of the characters in this book are dealing with some of the hardest of hardships, the author decided to give us a break on the romantic relationship side of things. These two are the sappiest, corniest, most <i>interesting</i> pair, and we get the

relief and joy of their closest family and friends being mostly quite happy for them, even if it takes a while for Henry's parents to get there. It did feel a little wish fulfillment-y, but I did not care because they deserved the love and care of their little transplanted community in San Francisco.

I laughed out loud (church bell) and cried (Henry's conversation

with his father where he shows him his artwork

) and just had a grand time (when I wasn't scared something else bad would happen to them.) I truly appreciate authors who write about these mostly unexplored pockets of queer history and give characters hopeful stories, histories and futures, because queer people have always been here and every reminder we can get is precious.

Thank you to the author for the ARC; it was much appreciated!