4.8 Stars

Wow. It's difficult to organize my thoughts on this book because... the book had a LOT of stuff in it; so I decided to sleep on it before writing a review. I woke up thinking about the book and wishing I hadn't finished it yet. So that's definitely a good sign.

Main Characters:
Noa:
- Age 19 when the book starts, 22 for most of the book.
- Mother has unfortunate vices like substances and gambling, so he has gotten close to and relies on his stepdad when the book starts.
- Always has been kinky, since he was old enough to know what that meant; after the prologues he starts finding his way in the local BDSM community and he is a Little. When he regresses, he's like a monster-puppy who wants to f*ck all the time. Also he's adorable.
KC:
- Has been Noa's stepdad since Noa was 7 (12 years when the book starts).
- A closeted gay man; only his best friend Lucian knows.
- Noa finds pr0n on KC's computer that is related to doll play and somnophilia. KC also identifies as a Daddy.
Lucian:
- Best friend to KC for a looong time.
- An out gay man; he is a Master and active in his local BDSM community.
- The reader doesn't know a lot about Lucian for the beginning parts of the book.
Cam (Cameron):
- 2 years older than Noa (around 23 when he's introduced in a prologue; 24 for most of the book).
- Meets Noa outside a munch for his BDSM community. The community happens to include KC and Lucian.
- He craves structure from a Dom.

Some Details:
Relationship: MMMM, Noa & Cam & KC & Lucian
POV: 1st Person Multiple; but only from Noa's and Cam's POVs for the first 70% of the book. Then we get POV chapters from KC and Lucian
Tense: Past
HEA?:

Spoiler

Yes

Strict Top/Bottom?: No
Angst: 1.5/5
Spice Frequency: 3.75/5
Spice Level: 4.25/5

The book starts off with three prologues--yes, three. I remember joking to my friend that more than 10% of the book is prologue. But in this case, I can see why. Here's an outline of the prologues:

Prologue 1, 3 years ago:
- KC asks Noa's mom for a divorce, tells Noa he "needs time" apart from Noa.
- Noa is upset and kisses KC; KC kisses back. Then KC changes his mind and leaves.

Prologue 2, 18 months ago:
- KC is in the hospital after a skiing accident. Ends up with partial paralysis. Lucian is at the hospital and talks to Noa.
- We find out that KC kept telling Noa he wasn't ready to talk. So then Noa gave up after 5 months of that.

Prologue 3, 1 year ago:
- Noa meets Cameron.
- A Dom brings Noa and Cameron together physically (the start of a relationship between the two).

After the prologues, we get a good look into the life of Cam and Noa together, since the first 70% of the book is from their POVs. THEY ARE SO CUTE TOGETHER. I cannot stress this enough. They are so in love, are living together, call each other "babe" in the cutest way. BUT--they are both subbies and they need a lil more. Cam has ended up being like the big brother of Noa whenever he regresses:

Kink brothers. He'd always wanted siblings. With three sisters, I'd always wanted a brother. He burrowed closer and kissed my neck. "Can I fuck you a little?" he whispered. "Mmm..." I pushed my morning wood against the mattress and felt a sluggish wave of need roll through me. "Eat my ass first."

Cam loves being there and taking care of Noa when Noa's Little, but Cam isn't getting any of the structure he needs.

They have an open-ish relationship (open for kink, closed for love) and it mostly works for them, except--Cam has been obsessing over Lucian for years, and Noa is still hung up on KC. Because of how KC abandoned Noa, Noa is convinced that it won't work for him and Cam to find a Dom for their relationship; but Cam is hell-bent on getting Noa to join Cam's (and KC's!) BDSM community. Eventually, Noa agrees to go to an event with Cam's (& KC's & Lucian's) community, and seeing KC again becomes... explosive. KC and Noa work through their stuff together (wink wink.... it's very hot), and so do Lucian and Cam. The four of them end up all forming unique bonds with each other, and they all (quickly) come to love each other very much. Despite the quickness, however, it feels very organic, and it's beautiful but also steamy and kinky. After all, there had already been love formed through multiple years between Noa/Daddy KC, Noa/Cam, KC/Lucian, and Cam/Master Lucian. After all that, it became easy for bonds to form as well between Cam/KC and Noa/Uncle Lucian.

The one thing I don't love, plot-wise, in the book (and it's a tiny detail) is that Lucian mentions at the end that he's planning to propose to Cam after getting Noa's permission. The proposal doesn't happen in the book, though. But.... even though I'm sure Noa would love this idea, I still feel meh about it. I felt like there was too much between Noa and Cam for Cam to get married to Lucian. Maybe I'd've felt better about it if I knew that Noa and KC will get married too. Although I will say that KC and Noa already share a last name, and as Lucian states, if he marries Cam then the last names in their household will go down from 3 to 2, so that part is neat. And really, if they're all together and love each other, then it shouldn't matter to me who marries whom. It was just a little detail that made me frown at the end.

I should mention the masterfully distinct POVs from all the characters. The writing of each character in the book was done SO well. Even within each character, the writing made it easy to tell what mindset the character was in. As an example, once all the exclamation points and shorter sentence fragments started coming out, I could tell that Noa was in his Little space. Gosh, I really enjoyed the writing and the book as a whole. This was amazing to read.

Some things the book has:
- MMMM
- Stepdad/stepson
- MC who uses wheelchair
- BDSM
- D/s
- M/s
- Needle play
- Doll play
- Somnophilia & Necro play (mentioned only)
- Wax play (kinda... lol)
- Watersports
- Sadist Daddy / Little
- Puppy play
- Sounding
- Objectification
- Fear play
- Diaper as humiliation (once)

We'd found all our doll parts. This was it. This was the ultimate dynamic. Us four.

So, I've given this 4 stars, because I know this is a pretty great book.

It was less great for me, though (otherwise I would've given more than 4 stars), but that's because of some personal preference issues I have. Honestly, I just really did not like Cole, one of the MCs, and the book was from his POV for the first 83%. That means I was depressed for 83% of the book, and ... well, that's just not my favorite thing to be.

There was definitely humor in this book, but honestly Cole's version of humor seemed cruel, to me. He was so mean, in both dialogue and narration. His thoughts were ugly. And I know, I know, that he had his reasons for being so bitter. I get it. I understood that from the beginning. But it's just not pleasant for me to read one MC being so mean to the other sweet MC for most of the book. And being mean to an animal as well. Even though he didn't really mean the bad stuff behind his words and thoughts (and the 2nd MC saw this, and loved him for it, loved his deception of himself)... again, it was just too frustrating for me.

That being said, I loved Grantham (the 2nd MC) (... and I loved Bart too, despite his boot-humping and farts--or maybe because of those things?). And the story was super cool and interesting. I mean, gosh, it was really creative and well written. I can tell, for another person, that this would be the perfect book. I wish it had been for me. Maybe I'll even go back some day and re-read the happier parts (but I don't think I'll put myself through the first part of the book again).

And the spice was AWESOME, btw. LOVED that aspect of the book.

4.55 rounded up

Loved this one! 4.5 stars. The healing, the pink, the dresses!

3.75 stars, rounded up to 4.

This was a good book and well written. I love the idea of a Dom jumping into the role of Daddy for the first time. It was sweet to see the interactions between Gray and Cam as Camden switched in and out of little space or sometimes hovered between little space and adult Cam. Gray did a great job of figuring Camden out and trying to give him what he needed.

Where the book lacked for me was in the dialogue between Gray and Camden. They had soooo many conversations where they talked a lot and I feel like they didn’t end up saying anything substantial. I get it that Cam was supposed to be a distracted artist and also when he was in his little space he got a bit less articulate than normal; and Gray was nervous about being a new Daddy so he wanted to talk things through thoroughly… but at times it was just pages of unnecessary conversations that really fatigued my brain. I didn’t need a whole chapter about the box FedEx delivered. And still at the end of that chapter, the reader didn’t know what was in the box. Ok, rant over.

Full RTC
But I just wanna say that the humor in this book (and the previous book) is just… meant for me. Like, every sentence brought me glee in some way. Gods, it’s perfect. Zile is perfect.
Also I was super happy to see Apple and Adam again in this book. I’m still in love with them.

4.55 stars! ⭐⭐⭐⭐

4.6 stars!

Gosh, Fae Quin just has a way of writing that is addictive to me. It’s like every sentence is… adorable? Is that the right word? And she’s one of the few authors that can consistently write children that I love!

There are so many great things in this book. Also I hope there will be a 7-10 years later friends-to-lovers story for Jeremy and Bubba ❤️