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A review by haletostilinski1
Ticking the Boxes by L.J. Hayward
4.0
4.5 stars rounded down
Overall, another win for me by this wonderful author, and in this series. This story grabbed me from the start, with our interesting two main characters, Sean and Lucas.
Sean has just recently gotten out of four year relationship where he'd been engaged, because his ex-fiance was cheating on him, and with a friend of his as well.
Brett, the ex-fiance, is an asshole, although he pretends not to be. And I thought Sean was way too nice to him for what he did. He doesn't forgive him or get back with him, but the few times we see Brett after the beginning, Sean isn't cursing his name and reading him the riot act, as he should be. He even lets Brian hug him, which...I would not have, if it were me.
From there, Sean's life seems to go to shit. He loses his fiance, his job and somewhere to live all within about a week. He's been couch surfing when Tyler, his older friend from high school, lets the manager of a complex know that his friend Sean is looking for a place to stay.
Said manager is Lucas, a 33-year-old who is raising his 8 year old niece, Amy, alone and who when he sees Sean, remembers him right away from 7 years ago. Sean, however, does not.
The first of many miscommunications in this, is Lucas not telling Sean he remembers him and why. While understandable, it's still frustrating AF.
Then, as these two get to know each other, become friends, and get closer, they kiss and they almost go further, but Lucas, who is a virgin, doesn't handle it well and he tries to explain but doesn't get it out, and Sean assumes that he's straight and is being rejected and storms out before Lucas can explain.
But then they go weeks without actually talking about what happened, which was also frustrating. But when they finally do, things are cleared up and Sean distinctly thinks something along the lines of "man they should talk more and learn to ask before assuming, because it leads to things like this" and then...for the rest of the book, Sean does not heed his own advice.
Which frustrating me, which is why I rounded down instead of up with this, because he didn't seem to learn from his mistakes! And Lucas wasn't as bad, but keeping the fact that he knew Sean for the whole time they're together until we catch up to the present that we see in the beginning was not good and frustrating too.
These two just didn't like to talk to each other - I mean, they talked in other ways, in the getting to know you ways, and all that stuff, but Sean sure liked to assume and Lucas, while not as bad, still didn't tell Sean he knew who he was from years ago. They also liked talk themselves out of telling something to each other or talking to each other.
Even at the very end, after all this assuming and miscommunication and getting things wrong, Sean still saw Lucas and Amy backing up bags and assumed Lucas was running, when if he'd just asked him what he was doing instead of getting angry off his assumption, the potential problem wouldn't have been a potential problem.
All that's not to say I disliked this, because I loved it. When these two weren't being idiots and just being together and falling in love, I loved this, absolutely loved it. And yeah, the miscommunications made for some good drama, I still hated the miscommunications, and how many times it happened! It annoyed the crap out of me.
So I couldn't round this up because of how much it annoyed me.
BUT, I still loved this, I still devoured it, it was still a page turner for me, and I didn't want to have to put it down.
These two, as frustrating as they could be, were still great together, and I enjoyed their characters and their romance. Just because I wanted to hit upside the head for being idiots, didn't mean I didn't love their characters lol. (I still hated Brett and feel he should have gotten more comeuppance. Fuck that dude.)
So overall, this was really good, with a great central romance and great characters. They could just also be idiots who didn't communicate properly, and that frustrated me. But still two thumbs up from me, and a great second installment in this series.
Overall, another win for me by this wonderful author, and in this series. This story grabbed me from the start, with our interesting two main characters, Sean and Lucas.
Sean has just recently gotten out of four year relationship where he'd been engaged, because his ex-fiance was cheating on him, and with a friend of his as well.
Brett, the ex-fiance, is an asshole, although he pretends not to be. And I thought Sean was way too nice to him for what he did. He doesn't forgive him or get back with him, but the few times we see Brett after the beginning, Sean isn't cursing his name and reading him the riot act, as he should be. He even lets Brian hug him, which...I would not have, if it were me.
From there, Sean's life seems to go to shit. He loses his fiance, his job and somewhere to live all within about a week. He's been couch surfing when Tyler, his older friend from high school, lets the manager of a complex know that his friend Sean is looking for a place to stay.
Said manager is Lucas, a 33-year-old who is raising his 8 year old niece, Amy, alone and who when he sees Sean, remembers him right away from 7 years ago. Sean, however, does not.
The first of many miscommunications in this, is Lucas not telling Sean he remembers him and why. While understandable, it's still frustrating AF.
Then, as these two get to know each other, become friends, and get closer, they kiss and they almost go further, but Lucas, who is a virgin, doesn't handle it well and he tries to explain but doesn't get it out, and Sean assumes that he's straight and is being rejected and storms out before Lucas can explain.
But then they go weeks without actually talking about what happened, which was also frustrating. But when they finally do, things are cleared up and Sean distinctly thinks something along the lines of "man they should talk more and learn to ask before assuming, because it leads to things like this" and then...for the rest of the book, Sean does not heed his own advice.
Which frustrating me, which is why I rounded down instead of up with this, because he didn't seem to learn from his mistakes! And Lucas wasn't as bad, but keeping the fact that he knew Sean for the whole time they're together until we catch up to the present that we see in the beginning was not good and frustrating too.
These two just didn't like to talk to each other - I mean, they talked in other ways, in the getting to know you ways, and all that stuff, but Sean sure liked to assume and Lucas, while not as bad, still didn't tell Sean he knew who he was from years ago. They also liked talk themselves out of telling something to each other or talking to each other.
Even at the very end, after all this assuming and miscommunication and getting things wrong, Sean still saw Lucas and Amy backing up bags and assumed Lucas was running, when if he'd just asked him what he was doing instead of getting angry off his assumption, the potential problem wouldn't have been a potential problem.
All that's not to say I disliked this, because I loved it. When these two weren't being idiots and just being together and falling in love, I loved this, absolutely loved it. And yeah, the miscommunications made for some good drama, I still hated the miscommunications, and how many times it happened! It annoyed the crap out of me.
So I couldn't round this up because of how much it annoyed me.
BUT, I still loved this, I still devoured it, it was still a page turner for me, and I didn't want to have to put it down.
These two, as frustrating as they could be, were still great together, and I enjoyed their characters and their romance. Just because I wanted to hit upside the head for being idiots, didn't mean I didn't love their characters lol. (I still hated Brett and feel he should have gotten more comeuppance. Fuck that dude.)
So overall, this was really good, with a great central romance and great characters. They could just also be idiots who didn't communicate properly, and that frustrated me. But still two thumbs up from me, and a great second installment in this series.