Jade Cain

I was given One Way Or Another by the author through the Goodreads M/M Romance Group’s Don’t Buy My Love program for an honest review. This is the story of Ethan Kovac and Isaac Duncan actors in a sitcom and is told through their altering povs. Samantha is their female friend and co-star of the show.



Brief summary of the story, Ethan is gay but in the closet. Isaac is straight or bi or gfy depending on what part of the story the reader is reading. The story jumps right into the middle of their ongoing attraction and how they finally get together, at a party in the restroom. For a while they stay together until Ethan breaks it off when he hears some information and is afraid that Isaac will lose his job in the sitcom. Without giving Isaac an explanation they break-up and Isaac goes back to dating women. What turned me off in this story is that the author didn’t just stick to giving us info that Isaac was dating other women, the author puts us in the middle of a bedroom scene with Isaac and his current paramour. That was a big no-no for me. I don’t like girly-bits in my m/m stories and from that point on I couldn’t take seriously the relationship between Ethan and Isaac. There’s no warning in the blurb that there is some heterosexual sex, even though it isn’t explicit, we still know Isaac has sex with this woman. So this turned me off from the story and knocks off a lot of stars.

The tense of the story was odd; I’m not sure what it was. It was almost narration style, like how an entertainment gossip magazine would write. Maybe that was intentional since the story was based on a TV show, but it made for awkward reading. I had a difficult time keeping track of which pov we were supposed to be in. What didn’t help was that the formatting wasn’t very good in my epub version and lines between the different characters ran together as one and that added to the confusion. Maybe because of the tense used, I didn’t feel very connected to the characters and couldn’t feel their emotions. It was like I was being told their emotions, and during the sex scenes my mind would wander.

The story is a fast read and I think the plot is a nice idea and would have worked out better if the story was written in all one go instead of smaller stories and if the author had gone into more depth with the characters and plot. I want to give this 2.5 Stars. But since Goodreads only gives full stars I can only give One Way Or Another 2 Stars. What keeps me from giving three stars is the fact that I was much too frequently confused about which pov I was reading the story from and the lack of the character’s ability to engage my emotions or to empathize with them. The het sex in an m/m story ruined it for me, especially without a warning it was going to be a part of the story.

… (meer)

I received a copy of this book by the author in exchange for an honest review

I really enjoyed this story! Ethan and Isaac had such great chemistry as friends before getting involved, and it helped their relationship solidify as lovers. Samantha was a great minor character and I liked the dynamics between the 3 friends. I do with there was a bit more in the way of Isaac's discovery of attraction to Ethan since he had not had any gay tendencies previously. Additionally, I really wish the story gave more details into the resolution of a problem with Gilbert rather than just telling us it did resolve. Regardless of those small wishes, this was very well written and packed a big story in few pages. I would have liked more because I really enjoyed these characters. I would definitely read more from this author in the future.… (meer)