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A review by heabooknerd
Unwritten Law by Eden Finley
4.0
So I'll admit I was nervous going into UNWRITTEN LAW because I wasn't sure if I was going to like the hidden identity aspect of the story. And while I do wish the big reveal happened sooner (just because I dread confrontation), I ended up really enjoying how this one turned out. So in a nutshell, Law and Anders are identical twins and due to a horrific attack 5 years prior, Anders struggles with PTSD and he avoids men who are bigger and stronger than him. When he sees his blind date, he has a panic attack and asks his brother, Law, to pretend to be him and call off the date. This is not necessarily something new for these brothers as we discover, but when Law sits down with Reed he realizes that Reed just might be the perfect guy for Law to explore his bisexuality which Law has kept a secret. So begins a series of hookups between Reed and Law pretending to be Anders. To make things more complicated, Law teaches martial arts to a group of local teens from the high school and Reed turns up as their new teacher. So now Law is pretending to be his brother when hooking up with Reed and acting as himself in a growing friendship with Reed. Talk about stressful!
I loved Reed's character and I found him really endearing and sweet. He's new to town and teaching so he has some insecurities but as his friendship with Law develops and he gains the trust of his students, we start to see the comfortable and outgoing Reed appear. Of course, he's terribly conflicted because he's sleeping with Anders (who is really Law) but he's emotionally starting to fall for Law (who he thinks is straight). And with all of that, you'd think that I would dislike Law more but I loved his character too! Law never meant for his one night stand with Reed to go anywhere, let alone to ever run into Reed again and once he gets deeper into his lie he's afraid to come clean. Then when feelings start to develop, he's scared of losing Reed. There's a lot of emotion packed into this story and you can't help but feel for both guys even though Law is kind of the "bad guy" in this scenario for lying.
In addition to the very sexy and steamy romance between Reed and Law there's also little peeks into the real Anders's life and it makes me really curious for his book. His history is tragic and I completely understand why the brother's are so codependent. While a lot of the topics addressed in UNWRITTEN LAW are heavy and emotional, Finley does a great job of keeping the story uplifting overall.
Content Warning: References to domestic violence, anxiety, depression, and codependency; side plot about an LGBTQ teen who gets beat up by his father after coming out
I loved Reed's character and I found him really endearing and sweet. He's new to town and teaching so he has some insecurities but as his friendship with Law develops and he gains the trust of his students, we start to see the comfortable and outgoing Reed appear. Of course, he's terribly conflicted because he's sleeping with Anders (who is really Law) but he's emotionally starting to fall for Law (who he thinks is straight). And with all of that, you'd think that I would dislike Law more but I loved his character too! Law never meant for his one night stand with Reed to go anywhere, let alone to ever run into Reed again and once he gets deeper into his lie he's afraid to come clean. Then when feelings start to develop, he's scared of losing Reed. There's a lot of emotion packed into this story and you can't help but feel for both guys even though Law is kind of the "bad guy" in this scenario for lying.
In addition to the very sexy and steamy romance between Reed and Law there's also little peeks into the real Anders's life and it makes me really curious for his book. His history is tragic and I completely understand why the brother's are so codependent. While a lot of the topics addressed in UNWRITTEN LAW are heavy and emotional, Finley does a great job of keeping the story uplifting overall.
Content Warning: References to domestic violence, anxiety, depression, and codependency; side plot about an LGBTQ teen who gets beat up by his father after coming out