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A review by the_novel_approach
Out of the Shade by S.A. McAuley
4.0
Out of the Shade is a coming out story, but that’s the book in its most basic context. While this is no doubt a significant factor in its plot and characterizations, and the story’s focal point, it’s also about so much more than a man who’s hiding a part of himself away from the only people in the world who matter to him. There are layers and components to Jesse Solomona that Out of the Shade addresses alongside his being uncomfortable with and afraid to admit his bisexuality. Jesse is a giant of a man, can be gentle when he needs to be, is a beast on the athletic field, but he’s also a raging alcoholic and a belligerent drunk who has some deep-seated and unresolved problems beyond the secret that he sleeps with both women and men. He carries around massive amounts of guilt and anger over his sister Emily’s past and current abuses, which eventually comes to a head…and nearly ruins his life in the process. He is tighter than tight with a group of friends who feel like a family, who are his family. And very much like blood family, those friendships have strangled and suffocated his ability to be who he is. These are the people Jesse is utterly terrified of losing, and so he remains solidly in the closet.
That Jesse is catnip to the new guy in town, Chuck Dunn, says quite a bit about the kind of men Chuck is attracted to.
S.A. McAuley lays bare a man, as well as a story, that is a multitude of degrees shy of a light and fluffy romance. The weight of the stress Jesse carries, and the absolute terror of being thought of as anything but straight, casts a dark shadow over a relationship that could have been so, so good for him, but that had trouble written all over it from the very start. Jesse and Chuck have some fantastic chemistry, and their friendship is as easy-going as their intimacy is complicated. They go through some incredible highs together that make the lows that much more painful to witness, and they crash and burn in a spectacular fashion. The one thing that is clear as crystal, however, is that the crash needed to happen, and I applaud McAuley for not skirting the harder truths or taking the easy way out of her commitment to telling an honest story just to tick off a few boxes in the romance category. The preeminent factor in this relationship, in the end, is in the recovery that had to happen before Jesse and Chuck could begin building something together. Chuck himself is not without his own backstory full of emotional baggage, either, and his attraction to Jesse was both history repeating itself and a model of how to self-sabotage one’s own happiness. They needed to fail for their own self-care and preservation, and before a future together could be anything more than a want.
There is an integral piece to Jesse’s recovery, what brought Chuck to Kensington in the first place, which is uplifting and adds even more emotional heft to the story. It is a catalyst for Jesse’s courage and honesty, to finally prove to Chuck that he was ready to be present in his life and in their relationship, and for the Warriors kids, a community boxing club for at-risk youth, to embrace a hurting friend. There was a lot of empathy and emotion to delve into there, and its symmetry worked to bring everything together beautifully. This was not a filler side-story to escalate or feed the drama; this was an integral thread to enhance the sense of unity and community and to elevate the sense of found family and the importance of those connections and support systems.
Out of the Shade may be a coming out story, but it’s also a celebration of recovery and life and family and friendships and love. I braced myself through the bad times and celebrated the book through the good, and on to Jesse and Chuck’s HEA. This is a great novel to dig into if you’re a reader who gets into deeply flawed characters with issues complicated by lies—the lies we tell ourselves, the lies we tell each other, and the lies we tell by omission.
That Jesse is catnip to the new guy in town, Chuck Dunn, says quite a bit about the kind of men Chuck is attracted to.
S.A. McAuley lays bare a man, as well as a story, that is a multitude of degrees shy of a light and fluffy romance. The weight of the stress Jesse carries, and the absolute terror of being thought of as anything but straight, casts a dark shadow over a relationship that could have been so, so good for him, but that had trouble written all over it from the very start. Jesse and Chuck have some fantastic chemistry, and their friendship is as easy-going as their intimacy is complicated. They go through some incredible highs together that make the lows that much more painful to witness, and they crash and burn in a spectacular fashion. The one thing that is clear as crystal, however, is that the crash needed to happen, and I applaud McAuley for not skirting the harder truths or taking the easy way out of her commitment to telling an honest story just to tick off a few boxes in the romance category. The preeminent factor in this relationship, in the end, is in the recovery that had to happen before Jesse and Chuck could begin building something together. Chuck himself is not without his own backstory full of emotional baggage, either, and his attraction to Jesse was both history repeating itself and a model of how to self-sabotage one’s own happiness. They needed to fail for their own self-care and preservation, and before a future together could be anything more than a want.
There is an integral piece to Jesse’s recovery, what brought Chuck to Kensington in the first place, which is uplifting and adds even more emotional heft to the story. It is a catalyst for Jesse’s courage and honesty, to finally prove to Chuck that he was ready to be present in his life and in their relationship, and for the Warriors kids, a community boxing club for at-risk youth, to embrace a hurting friend. There was a lot of empathy and emotion to delve into there, and its symmetry worked to bring everything together beautifully. This was not a filler side-story to escalate or feed the drama; this was an integral thread to enhance the sense of unity and community and to elevate the sense of found family and the importance of those connections and support systems.
Out of the Shade may be a coming out story, but it’s also a celebration of recovery and life and family and friendships and love. I braced myself through the bad times and celebrated the book through the good, and on to Jesse and Chuck’s HEA. This is a great novel to dig into if you’re a reader who gets into deeply flawed characters with issues complicated by lies—the lies we tell ourselves, the lies we tell each other, and the lies we tell by omission.