An M/M romance reading list selection from Val for AReCafe.com. ( )

To be reviewed.

I was looking forward to this after a few great reviews but I think we were reading different stories. This jock/nerd theme has been done so many times and done so much better than this. The writing was immature and the pacing of the story was ridiculous (the Nerd was 'in love' with the Jock after a day and a bit? FFS, I like an instalove as much as the next girl but there has to be valid chemistry to support it. There was none here.) and the characters stereotypical caricatures. I'm disappointed as I was expecting something fresh and got a poorly written story that offered nothing new. ( )

I was looking forward to this after a few great reviews but I think we were reading different stories. This jock/nerd theme has been done so many times and done so much better than this. The writing was immature and the pacing of the story was ridiculous (the Nerd was 'in love' with the Jock after a day and a bit? FFS, I like an instalove as much as the next girl but there has to be valid chemistry to support it. There was none here.) and the characters stereotypical caricatures. I'm disappointed as I was expecting something fresh and got a poorly written story that offered nothing new. ( )

Some of the themes in this novel were familiar, a nerd/jock romance in high school, if you are familiar with Jeff Erno’s coming of age stories you know what I’m talking about, but on the contrary of Erno’s novels, here there is no reference to a budding D/s relationship, and while of course nerd John is not as physical strong as Nick, and Nick has money wherelse John is poor, they remain in any case ordinary high school guys, with a love story that resembles 92010 or Gossip Girls. Aside from that, I’m really starting to realize that boys and girls in the US emancipate a lot earlier than their fellow Europeans, and Nick and John are more little young adult than boys.

Another point where this novel differed from other similar ones, is that Nick is bisexual; he is in love with John, and he decides to be exclusive, but nevertheless he remains 100% interested in both boys and girls, or better in 1 boy, John, and many girls. Nick is a womanizer, and he likes sex, like any other teenagers, but he is also a sensitive boy, and able to recognize when he has a good thing in his hands, see John. I liked that the author didn’t try to make him a gay teenager in the closet, and in a way, I liked he recognized bisexuals; I know that, to many, it’s a strange concept, or you like boys or you like girls, but if you shift the focus on the feelings, the gender of your beloved shouldn’t matter.

Final point the heat level, that, truth be told, is medium-low. There is a lot of talk about sex, as it should be considering these are teenagers, and indeed they are having plenty of that, but the novel is not really graphic. Truth be told is less explicit than some other YA novels I read aimed to teenagers. Not surprisingly, this story was picked for its second release by an Erotic Romance publisher but for its YA line.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008CPBEUA/?tag=elimyrevandra-20