The setup of this romance novel is basically everything I love best: two college students with secrets in their past are roomed together, despite each of them having been told they would be living in a single. On top of that, one of them is openly gay, and the other has been so busy dealing with his disaster of a life to really consider things like his latent attraction to men as well as women.
The conflict starts immediately, with Tom simply wanting to have a bed he can fall asleep in and Reese determined to scare him off by having extremely frequent and obvious sex with men in their room whenever Tom wants to be there. This leads to Tom being there and "asleep" during some of those hookups, and eventually it leads to a late night hookup of their own.
I really enjoyed the beginning of their relationship, and how the two of them dealt together with Reese's need for control and PTSD from a past assault. It managed to be compelling and considerate while also being satisfying romantically. But as the novel progressed, their future conflicts and inability to ever actually listen to each other or have a real conversation made the story fall apart. They were both a bit too dumb and too demanding of each other at times, and it made the resolution at the end not quite land the way I wished it had. It needed more therapy and less romantic conflict, sadly. I still liked the characters, but while I think there was a good book somewhere within this one, the end result wasn't quite right.
Grade: C
The conflict starts immediately, with Tom simply wanting to have a bed he can fall asleep in and Reese determined to scare him off by having extremely frequent and obvious sex with men in their room whenever Tom wants to be there. This leads to Tom being there and "asleep" during some of those hookups, and eventually it leads to a late night hookup of their own.
I really enjoyed the beginning of their relationship, and how the two of them dealt together with Reese's need for control and PTSD from a past assault. It managed to be compelling and considerate while also being satisfying romantically. But as the novel progressed, their future conflicts and inability to ever actually listen to each other or have a real conversation made the story fall apart. They were both a bit too dumb and too demanding of each other at times, and it made the resolution at the end not quite land the way I wished it had. It needed more therapy and less romantic conflict, sadly. I still liked the characters, but while I think there was a good book somewhere within this one, the end result wasn't quite right.
Grade: C
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