Him (Unabridged) - Sarina Brown & Elle Kennedy Review
Consumed - Audiobook
Apple Books Price - $17.99
Narrated by - Teddy Hamilton & Jacob Morgan
Release Date - March 8th, 2016
Length - 8 hours & 5 minutes
Contemporary, LGBTQIA+, Romance, Gay, Friends to Lovers
Back of Book Blurb (from Everand)
They don't play for the same team. Or do they?
Jamie Canning has never been able to figure out how he lost his closest friend. Four years ago, his tattooed, wise-cracking, rule-breaking roommate cut him off without an explanation. So what if things got a little weird on the last night of hockey camp the summer they were eighteen? It was just a little drunken foolishness. Nobody died.
Ryan Wesley's biggest regret is coaxing his very straight friend into a bet that pushed the boundaries of their relationship. Now, with their college teams set to face off at the national championship, he'll finally get a chance to apologize. But all it takes is one look at his longtime crush, and the ache is stronger than ever.
Jamie has waited a long time for answers, but walks away with only more questions—can one night of sex ruin a friendship? If not, how about six more weeks of it? When Wesley turns up to coach alongside Jamie for one more hot summer at camp, Jamie has a few things to discover about his old friend…and a big one to learn about himself.
I would recommend this book to anyone who wants an easy-to-read, sweet, and sexual romance between two men who don’t have to go through the hardships of what it means to be gay in a contemporary world. Even though one character in this book displays homophobia and one of the main character’s parents does not accept their son as gay, these hardships are not major plot points.
This book doesn’t go too deep into what it’s like to be gay (though it is touched upon) and mainly focuses on the budding love story of two men who were best friends when they were younger, grew apart, rekindled their friendship, and thus sparked a steamy romantic relationship.
My overall opinion of this book is that it was really good. It features a solid friends-to-lovers romance between two friends: an already out man and a man discovering his sexual identity.
Both Jamie and Wes are enjoyable and funny characters, and they experience some character development, which is sometimes lost in romance novels. Not this one, though. This book has a good plot, story, and character development. I’m hoping that the next book in the series, “US,” will give us a deeper dive into their dynamic and reveal more about their relationship.
One thing I can definitely recall from listening to this book is the number of sex scenes written. There is so much sex in this book that I found myself saying out loud, “Damn, they’re fucking AGAIN???”. I enjoy a good sex scene, but when a new one is introduced, I feel like a new form of intimacy should be presented as well, not just a new location with the same actions and dialogue. I believe that sex scenes should move the plot along as well as entertain, and a lot of the sex scenes in this book were purely for entertainment.
Overall, I give this book a big fat
4.0
If you enjoy M/M steamy romance or boys’ love manga and anime, you’ll most likely enjoy this. It’s well written, and the narrator’s voices are deep and very nice to listen to. (・ω<)