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A review by iam
Tight Quarters by Annabeth Albert
4.0
I enjoyed this!
Tight Quarters is a subtle age gap romance between a pansexual navy SEAL and a gay journalist who meet when the latter gets embedded into the former's team for research for his newest article.
I say 'subtle' because while Bacon is in his late twenties and Spencer in his early fourties, it's not really noticeable or brought up much.
On a side note: Yes, this guy's name is Bacon. Like, that's his real name. Last name, and honestly, once you find out his full name it's obvious why he goes by just 'bacon' - as we say in German: poor dude really "hat die Ar*schkarte gezogen" when it comes to names.
The pansexual rep was quite nice, but also not big deal. Both characters know what being pan means, there is no dicussion about it, which I could appreciate. Instead there is more focus on the casual homophobia in Bacon's team and the reactions to it.
I also really liked how Bacon's past as emo punk kid with full on eyeliner, dyed hair and skinny jeans still shows in how he is drawn towards androgynity both in himself and others, and how he doesn't shy away from non-traditionally male clothing or make-up, despite his whole tough-manly-man-guy vibe.
What I didn't like was the conflict. It took me a long time to realize what the issue really was, and even then I didn't really get why Bacon got so angry. Overall Bacon was just a huge hyprocrite and really horrible during the whole drama part - I understood parts of it, but I hated how he, after getting angry for something Spencer did to him, did they exact same thing to Spencer despite literally just having lost his shit about it.
Spencer himself was an interesting character. At several occasions he acted completely different from what I expected of him, which I found refreshing.
The overall dynamic between the two was fluend and nice to read, making this an enjoyable book.
On a side note: This is the second book I'm reading in this series. It can definitely be read as standalone story wise, but what I did find confusing was some of the military terms. I still don't know the difference between senior chief, XO and LT or what they were doing or who they were, and mixed those three up constantly, which got frustrating.
I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Tight Quarters is a subtle age gap romance between a pansexual navy SEAL and a gay journalist who meet when the latter gets embedded into the former's team for research for his newest article.
I say 'subtle' because while Bacon is in his late twenties and Spencer in his early fourties, it's not really noticeable or brought up much.
On a side note: Yes, this guy's name is Bacon. Like, that's his real name. Last name, and honestly, once you find out his full name it's obvious why he goes by just 'bacon' - as we say in German: poor dude really "hat die Ar*schkarte gezogen" when it comes to names.
The pansexual rep was quite nice, but also not big deal. Both characters know what being pan means, there is no dicussion about it, which I could appreciate. Instead there is more focus on the casual homophobia in Bacon's team and the reactions to it.
I also really liked how Bacon's past as emo punk kid with full on eyeliner, dyed hair and skinny jeans still shows in how he is drawn towards androgynity both in himself and others, and how he doesn't shy away from non-traditionally male clothing or make-up, despite his whole tough-manly-man-guy vibe.
What I didn't like was the conflict. It took me a long time to realize what the issue really was, and even then I didn't really get why Bacon got so angry. Overall Bacon was just a huge hyprocrite and really horrible during the whole drama part - I understood parts of it, but I hated how he, after getting angry for something Spencer did to him, did they exact same thing to Spencer despite literally just having lost his shit about it.
Spencer himself was an interesting character. At several occasions he acted completely different from what I expected of him, which I found refreshing.
The overall dynamic between the two was fluend and nice to read, making this an enjoyable book.
On a side note: This is the second book I'm reading in this series. It can definitely be read as standalone story wise, but what I did find confusing was some of the military terms. I still don't know the difference between senior chief, XO and LT or what they were doing or who they were, and mixed those three up constantly, which got frustrating.
I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.