Dude bound for priesthood ends up at the same college as his high school bully, even through he tried to avoid going to the same college, then they are forced together and sparks fly.


Overall reco: It was okay? I went looking for a book that I wanted to almost rip my heart out but not totally. Like an MMC that was hurt and abused and had pain and the blurp and sample I read felt like this was going to hit the spot. It didn't. I finished it, because it was so fast. but the whole thing felt rather superficial and flat. My chest never clenched for these characters, not even in their worst moments.

Plot: 2/5
Spice: 3/5
Characters: 3/5

Did I like the book? Kinda. Do I have rants? fucking yes.
I'm going to spoiler tag these, since most of my rants have to do with shit that's hinted at or 'comes out' halfway into the book.
Don't spiral -

Trevor and Andy's first sexual encounter in that classroom. Andy is gay, has known he's gay, and had spent a year in a BDSM club learning his limits but is taken by surprise by this encounter? Like.. fishy but okay. The thing that sticks out here is fucking TREVOR, who just did some googling, recognized subdrop? THEN just runs off? Gives a reason that seems legit and then it's like not? I dunno it felt glossed over. Also, he's still pretty straight here and he absolutely does not struggle with accepting that he's gay? Like, I LOVE a good subdrop bit after an intense scene but this just felt like Trevor shouldn't know that yet. The man is just reading about that life,and like distracted with accepting himself, and LATER ON says he needs to look more into it again because he needs to understand andy better. like WTF. And yes, not every gay person has to struggle to acceptance. Trevor didn't once question his sexuality prior to college. And while, good on him if he can just change his fundamental world view, but I'd expect him to spend more time on it than he did.

Book layout and formatting - This book is listed at 372 pages, my kindle says more but that's because there is a preview for another book at the end. Even so, this book had lots of extra space. There was a full line break between each paragraph, which effectively doubled the size of the book. I read roughly 40-50 pages an hour I read 85 pages an hour for this book. So this book isn't really 300+ pages. The pacing felt like it was a shorter book, and that makes sense with how fast I read it.
Jesus christ. Sorry - The religiousness of this book was.. weird. I'm not catholic, and now no longer religious in any form. I am not super familiar with the priesthood part of shit, just some basics. That said, the religion parts of the book felt fucking weird. Like the college and people AT the college seemed much more cool with 'gay' than I have experienced. Like, Mark was an outlier and honestly, from growing up in NJ and having friends and family that went to catholic HS and colleges.. Mark's behavior

except for the beating maybe

was much more normal. ESPECIALLY for groups that were going to mass that much. What I'm saying is.. this college and the people attending it and the families of the people attending it, seemed much more progressive than my East Coast liberal as fuck towns.
Superficial as fuck  - It never really felt like this book went into anything too deep. We got a lot of like superficial stuff and it would like HINT at it and then just never go further into it. Andy's Parents

we get told they only seemed to care when he decided he wanted to be a priest but nothing beyond that. Andy barely acknowledges their lack of love or even fucking attention. Fuck, his SISTER IS RIGHT FUCKING THERE when they basically cold shoulder him. and YEAH Andy has said he doesn't care but if my parents were cold fucking shouldering my brother like and I was close as she is with him. I'd be PISSED. I'd call them out on it or cut them off. Like holy fuck

and then there is the  year off 

that was apparently spent in a BDSM club? That no one seemed to know about but then did? Like he went off on his own? Did he live at the club? Or with someone from the club? His sister didn't seem to know anything about it until she was told and seemed SURPRISED that he was off doing something. like... maybe she didn't know what he was doing but seemed like she'd have an idea.

And then.. its like every character is superficial as fuck, the only one we seem to get any depth too is Mark! Oh and back to the 'dark shit'

For someone who spent a year in the BDSM culture and PAIN PLAY and maybe slept at a club, Andy didn't seem to have a good grasp on fucking rules. 'rules are there to keep us safe' oh yeah? Why the fuck didn't you have a safe word conversation? or a boundaries conversation? Also, Trevor read and understood subdrop but didn't happen to read about any of the rules and safety stuff? fucking what?

But the spice must be spicing?!  No. For an MMC into pain play we didn't get much. The spice felt about fleshed out as the characters. No depth, hollow, there but nothing amazing. Like I'm giving it a 3 because there are a little bit of things but it's NOTHING like how its sort of hinted at being.

God, as I'm writing this I want to drop it below a 2 but I actually think it was better written than the items I normally give 1 star too.