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bookswrappedinamber
This book didn’t hit for me the away I had hoped. We meet Jordan and Jamie, two boys who have known each other for years since Jordan’s cousin Denz is best friends with Jamie. Jordan goes to a different school but the boys always spent summers together. So they’ve been in each other’s orbit for forever. Jordan is now an event planner for his family’s company and Jamie is a bartender. A year ago there was an almost kiss between the two and it caused a break in the friendship despite the fact that the reason for the kiss’s rejection was to preserve the friendship.
Now Jamie is back in Jaden’s life as the man of honor in the wedding he’s planning. They keep having to work together for the sake of the wedding and making the bride to be happy. This proximity reminds them of their past, their friendship, and their desire for more.
Jamie seemed very immature. He’s always been the black sheep of his family and so he does whatever he wants but when he runs into financial hardships he just resorts to his rich parents. Instead of figuring himself out and finding something that actually makes him happy and have his own life, he lets himself suffer under his parents complaints and abuse so he can be handed money.
Jordan has very strict rules for himself and his life, which is fine but he’s also a very judgmental and competitive person. It’s almost autistic coded which would have made it more understandable, but it doesn’t get explained that way so he just comes across as cold and insufferable.
This book is described as a an expiration of identity and a demiromantic romance. While Jordan didn’t have a label at the beginning of the book and has started to understand himself by the end we didn’t really SEE any of that journey. We know of one past relationship, we see him on one blind date with a woman, we see him with Jamie, and we see him kiss one other man. We also see him get some resources from the LGBTQIA community center and he calls himself demisexual at the end but we didn’t really witness any of that growth/learning/ exploration of sexual identity. We didn’t get to see his big realization that other people experience things the way he is and see why Demisexuality is what he feels fits him. That moment of understanding is what I was holding out for and it basically didn’t exist.
Thanks to NetGalley for the arc