Beyond the Sea by Keira Andrews

4.5/5

Thanks for the ARC Keira!

As is the usual with Keira's books I loved it.

Rock star Troy and Pilot Brian crash land on a remote deserted island and have to survive long enough to be rescued. Nothing brings people together faster than being stranded on a little island right? For weeks with only each other for company through fishing for dinner and cracking coconuts and collecting rainwater to survive their relationship starts to get complicated.

But is there shared struggle enough to keep something going even after getting back to their completely separate worlds?

I don't think I'd ever read a survivalist book before, well there was the Hatchet back in school but that was forever ago. This was a really fun read and I greatly enjoyed it. I’m not sure if I'd be so levelheaded myself in such a situation I’d probably curl up in a sandy corner and die.

ARC Trailer Trash by Marie Sexton

5/5

First of all thanks to the publisher for the ARC!

Wow, I really loved this.

A historical, at least to me since it's before my time. 1986, Apparently when AIDS was sweeping through the gay community and people didn't have the info to be safe and not judge.

Nate just moved to this dying little town in Wyoming from Austin, Texas with his cop dad after his parents split and he's not happy. There's no tennis team here, no swim team only a bunch of small minded red necks and Cody. Cody whom he connects with immediately after meeting him behind a gas station.

Cody is from the worst part of town, living with his mother in a crappy old trailer, they barely have enough money to eat and definitely not enough for new school clothes. His impoverished looks and rumors that follow him about keep him an outcast.

Two kids from completely different worlds have no chance of staying friends but despite having their rough patches they somehow manage to keep what they have alive.

I loved both boys; I love how despite having all the attributes needed to be besties with the "cool" kids Nate rejected their stupid and went with the outcast who is one of the few actually good things in this town. Cody, well i'm rather surprised he's still alive honestly, coming from such depression with his poor mother doing whatever it took to keep them from the street, with everyone looking at him with disdain that's enough to bring most people to drugs or the barrel of a gun.

This book is way more than two boys from opposite sides of the track coming together. Crazy full of feeling, honestly made me tear up a time or three.

Part & Parcel by Abigail Roux

4.5/5

Though we never really got to meet Eli he's the one running the show in Part & Parcel

Nick is still recovering from the injuries he sustained in Miami you know where he almost died D: (that was terrifying) on a particularly dreary day he finally opens the box that Eli's mom gave him forever ago and discovers some hard to read letters hand written by Eli himself instructing him to assemble the gang for a road trip.

Throughout the whole painful trip through feels land Nick and Kelly work out their problems in their relationship, Ty is Ty and Zane is Zane.

This book was pretty cool it not only focused on Nick and Kelly but the whole group we learn what Ty and Zane are up to and some new stuff on Owen and Digger oh and there's kittens! Ty brings his kittens along on the road :D lots of cute.

ARC Rock N Soul by Lauren Sattersby

4.5/5

Thanks to the publisher for the ARC <3

So I'd really been looking forward to this book for a while now the blurb just sounded so awesome! :D Didn't disappoint.

Rock N Soul is about a normal guy named Tyler who's working at a hotel where just a couple of months ago a famous rock star od'd he was the one who found the body and now he's walking in to the room for the first time since. But then he finds a ring, the ring, Chris Raiden's ring which he puts on and now he has a narcissistic ghost pestering him.

Chris Raiden didn't live the healthiest of lives what with his heavy drug abuse and pushing away his friends and family he regrets it enough to come back and haunt the poor bellboy and get him to help in making amends.

What starts with as an understandably difficult relationship soon turns into friendship as Tyler can't resist Chris's ghostly charms.

I really did have fun reading this book, Chris is a riot he's what appears to be a spoiled rock star with a dirty drug habit and dirtier sex life but really he's a guy who's in great(not physical)pain and the only way to escape is the hard drugs which end in his death. Then there's Tyler who doesn't really think much of himself, he kept a crazy girlfriend for way longer than he should have just because she occasionally put out even though she was always envisioning someone else and he's stayed at his job for ever because he's never quite found the motivation to go back to college. The two bring out the best in each other with Chris opening up about his life and learning how his coping mechanisms aren't quite the best and Tyler growing up and accepting himself.

I love a good ghost love story and I'm always curious in how the relationship between a ghost and living person will work. The ending of this one still left me with some questions but oh well, live in the present and all that I guess.

How To Be A Normal Person by T.J. Klune

5/5

I was really excited for this book and went and preordered me a paperback and that's not something that I do lightly being that I am quite broke but I felt this book was meant to be read the old fashioned way and it did not disappoint.

I. Love. This. Book.

Gustavo Tiberius is rather weird, he reads encyclopedias before he goes to sleep, reads a motivational quote when he wakes, has a ferret named Harry S. Truman, owns a video store that hardly anyone ever comes into and has three awesome old lady biker friends who may be sisters or polyamorous lovers (he's too scared to ask). Sure he misses his dad everyday and maybe he's a bit lonely though he would never admit it but he's alright with that. Life is perfectly okay.

And then Casey Richards comes to town.

Casey is an Asexual Stoner Hipster who Instagrams everything he eats and is a sorta famous author of a popular paranormal book series that got turned into a movie, which Gus hates.

Gus has no interest in such a person.

But Gus can't deny that there's something there and somehow they end up becoming friends and oh my god maybe something more. But then Gus overhears something that makes him think that maybe being different is not as okay as he had believed and decides that if he wants Casey he has to change that.

So off Gustavo goes and "buys the internet" and starts researching how to become normal. So begins a new Gus even though the parts that Casey really loves are the un-normal ones.

Casey is a wonderful stereotypical Hipster who kept making me laugh with his hashtags and Gus, oh Gus such a precious soul who so does not need to change. Now don't get me started on the Lesbian Lovers, Sisters? Thespian riding badass old ladys, oh my god! They are a riot!

Really this book was hilarious and heart warming and proves that sex is so not the most important aspect in a relationship. And the cover? It's so minimalist and perfect and I Love it! Once again T.J. Klune delivers.

Crossroads by Riley Hart

5/5

9/30/15 Reread.

Yup still a 5.

I love this book. Love it. It's a wonderful Contemporary with double gay for you, super hot, dirty talking, sex!

Nick just got out of a long marriage that ended when his wife left him for the man she'd been cheating on him with. He's understandably depressed but hopeful for the future he has his new restaurant that's doing pretty well and he just moved in to his new home that shares a backyard with his new neighbor.

Bryce can't seem to figure himself out, it took forever for him to settle on a career path and his love life is filled with short relationships and shorter one night stands. His mother is exasperated but hopes he'll marry his girlfriend soon, only he hasn't been dating her in months just hasn't told her in fear of breaking her heart. At least his new neighbor, Nick seems to be cool. The two quickly bond over motorcycles and food. Bryce and Nick become inseparable, attached at the hip and Bryce's family suspects a little more than friendship is going on there except neither guy is gay but maybe, for each other?

Cue the smoking hot sex!

As the two fall in love they quickly realize that love isn't all they need and figuring out how to get their families to accept and believe in their relationship may be harder than they hoped.

I loved Riley Hart's book Collide but I think maybe this one is even better. I first read Crossroads right when it came out back in July and just two months later I'm reading it again! Also I love the cover, so cute and Black and White :D

Lovers & Fighters by Nash Summers

5/5!!!

I fell in love with Nash Summer’s writing when I read Maps a while back, she has such a wonderful way of bringing such amazing, colorful characters to life. And so when a saw she had an actual book not just a short story coming up I could barely contain my joy; I ended up reading it in a single sitting and I was correct in assuming it was going to be something amazing. Just like her characters Maps and Rust, Julian is an amazing unreal person bursting with personality and Scott who's internal struggle resonates with me, that struggle to be who everyone expects you to be while hiding who you really are.

In short this book is a piece of art just like Julian is and I'll continue reading anything Nash writes.

Oh, right the story is about Scott who's a modern art curator at a museum. Trapped in his own life just going through the motions and trying to be someone who his parents can be proud of and dating a nice guy because they just work. Then his carefully planned life gets shattered as does his heart when he meets the artfully broken Julian, a photographer with a ton of baggage and a troubled past and even though Scott knows that Julian doesn't fit his schedule he can't help obsessing over the beautiful boy who walks balloon toting dogs and has a different name everywhere he works who is his opposite in every way and who stole his heart the first time they met.