m/m

Static by L.A. Witt

Posted on by Dirty Girl Anne

Static
Grade: A-
Hotness Level: Blaze
Kink Level: No Kink
Genre: Sci-Fi, Gender Bending
Published: 1/20/14 (first pubbed 6/17/11)
Reviewed by Anne
208 pages

Imagine a world where some people can shift into the opposite gender. And just like the werewolf shifter romances I’ve read, these shifters consider each of their forms/genders a part of them. It’s a setup I couldn’t refuse! Then you add in a society only starting to accept shifters, and you’ve really got an interesting world.

Damon has been dating his girlfriend Alex for two years. Her relationship with her parents is very strained. When he doesn’t hear from her after a visit home, he goes looking for her and discovers that she’s a shifter, and due to some surgery her parents forced on her, she’s now stuck in her male form.

I didn’t want to put this book down! It made me think about gender and sexuality and it was a sweet romance to boot! The world building was easy to understand, and the shifting was no harder to accept than any kind of animal shifter. The re-developing romance was realistic and easy to read. The process by which Damon fell in love with Alex again was slow, not immediate, and that read very true to me. It also involved Alex accepting that someone could love him in whichever form he was in. That made for a slow paced romance, but it was realistic. There were times they were on the verge of having a conversation that got put off. When they finally got around to it I could see that it was a good thing they had waited – they’d each grown over the course of the story to the point that they could discuss it without hurting each other as much. That’s some good writing!

I highly recommend this book – it’s going on my best of the year list and it was one of my most interesting reads as well! In the past year I’ve really enjoyed some other reads that have made me think about gender and what it means. I recommend Butterfly Tattoo by Deidre Knight and Wallflower by Heidi Belleau. I also found the blog Raising My Rainbow, http://raisingmyrainbow.com/ about a family raising their gender non-conformist son. The blog and books have all made me think, and I hope they’ve made me a more accepting person. How about you? Any stories about gender bending sexuality and stereotypes you would recommend?

Why I Love Geeks by T.A. Chase

Posted on by Dirty Girl Anne
10331603
Grade: C
Hotness Level: Inferno
Kink Level: No Kink
Genre: Contemporary, m/m, police, nerd
Series: Why I Love… #1
Published: 3/6/11
Reviewed by Anne
140 ebook pages

I’m a sucker for nerd books, and the blurb for this one really sucked me in!  You’ve got Chuck, a homicide detective and technophobe who meets Herb, a talkative and super-smart scientist.  There’s instant attraction but not much in common – that’s a recipe for a good story as far as I’m concerned!  

Because I love the nerd trope so much, I’m willing to suspend a lot of disbelief.  Unfortunately, this story just pushed too far for me.  The set up was really awesome and I really enjoyed about the first half of the book.  Then it just got to be too much.  Little inconsistencies pulled me out of the story.  In one interaction Herb doesn’t know what a prostate is, but in the next he’s thinking about how much better that felt than what he’d read.  Another time he’s not sure what the lab normally looks like, and a few pages later he’s musing that the lab is kept compulsively clean.  Neither of those things is huge, but it was this kind of thing that kept pulling me out of the story – even though I didn’t want it to!  So, while in the beginning I could roll my eyes and accept what was being worked on in the lab, by the end I was just frustrated by the concept.

Herb is funny, and his verbal diarrhea made me smile.  Chuck was a character I loved, too.  A tough guy with a sweet side.  Chuck’s family was awesome!  I really wish I could have liked this one more.

Bad Boyfriend by K.A. Mitchell

Posted on by Dirty Girl Anne
12359552
Grade: A
Hotness Level: Inferno
Kink Level: No Kink
Genre: Contemporary, m/m
Series: Bad in Baltimore #2
Published: 12/6/11
Reviewed by Anne
157 pages

Quinn lived with his closeted boyfriend, Peter, for 10 years before Peter came home and dumped him – confessing to an affair with a woman who got pregnant and Peter was going to marry.  Peter is an asshole, and Quinn is shocked.  He’d given up so much to be with Peter, and Peter’s acting like they’d just been friends with benefits all along.  

Fast forward nine months and Peter wants Quinn to be the godfather of his baby.  Quinn decides to bring a date to the baptism.  He doesn’t need to be in the closet anymore, and what greater revenge could there be than bringing a date – and if he could be a bit flaming and in your face about his gay-ness?  Well, that would be great.

So Quinn goes boyfriend hunting at a gay dance club bar and finds Eli.  Eli is much younger than Quinn.  Young enough that Quinn asks for Eli’s ID to make sure he’s legal!  After years of living with Peter, Eli is refreshing!  He knows exactly what he likes and he’s not ashamed of it.  And an older man like Quinn?  That’s exactly what Eli likes.

There were so many things l loved about this book!  Both Eli and Quinn are working through things.  Interestingly, Eli initially writes off a relationship with Quinn because Eli feels like he has enough drama in his own life, and he knows Quinn has even more!  The contrast between an older man who is getting used to being more openly gay and a younger man who is very confident in who he is and what he wants was wonderful!

There is some “Daddy” play that squicks me out a bit, but overall the two are so sweet together and it clearly was a kink they both enjoyed, so it ultimately felt ok to me.   I also had some concerns about Eli’s financial stability.  He and Quinn never fully address this, which surprised me.

There is so much good to mention, though! The book gets bonus points for me in addressing the fact that Quinn is older than Eli.  Quinn needs recovery time between episodes of sex and he’s a little embarrassed by that.  It’s never a problem for them – in fact it becomes a sexy thing for them, but it’s there and it’s mentioned and dealt with – honesty that i really appreciated!  Another positive is that Peter, while definitely the villain of this story, isn’t just two dimensional. He’s done some awful things, but he’s pretty pitiable, too.  I loved Eli’s friends (and I had to go read their story – Bad Company – yes, I read out of order!) and I liked the family Quinn made for himself.

I highly recommend this book and it’s going on my best of the year list!  As I mentioned, I haven’t read this series in order.  Bad Boyfriend stands alone very well, but I kind of wish I’d read Bad Company first, since it features several of the same characters.