My old patterns continue. I'm about to binge-read through all of/most of Jay Northcote's work. Starting with his Housemates series. The third novel (the first full-length novel in this series) is titled "Practice Makes Perfect."
["Getting experience with the guy next door seems like a great idea-until the lines blur.
Dev, a geeky first year physics student, has zero sexual experience and he's determined to change that ASAP. After a bad time in halls of residence, he's starting the summer term with different housemates and a new plan of action.
Ewan lives in the house next door to Dev. He's young, free and single, and isn't looking to change that anytime soon. When awkward circumstances throw them together, Ewan offers to help Dev out in the bedroom in return for maths tutoring, and Dev jumps at the chance.
They work their way through Dev's sex-to-do list, but what starts as a perfect no-strings arrangement gets more complicated as their feelings for each other begin to grow. If they're going to turn their lessons in lovemaking into something more permanent, they need to work out how they feel about each other-before they get to the end of Dev's list."]
Very, very sweet. I mean, honestly. It couldn’t have gotten any sweeter. Well, then it got a little sour when they didn’t communicate their feelings and desires, especially after a misunderstanding or two. I might have cried (spend-read too fast to bawl, so there’s that).
I didn’t feel like a full-length novel, in a good way. Maybe because it was so perfectly paced. There wasn’t really any unnecessary scenes or conversations that could have been cut. Everything was crucial to the main plot or one of the many Dev-Ewan-centered subplots.
It was just really, really cute. All of it.
TRIGGER WARNINGS: homophobia, social anxiety, bullying (in connection to the bullying: breaking and entering, destroying personal property, use of homophobic slurs, people laughing instead of putting a stop to bullying aka group think as well as the bystander effect, etc*), etc.
*Spoiler alert, but a really nice one that makes you believe in humanity again: after Ewan meets Dev, when they get coffee at the campus cafe, Dev’s bullies taunt him, but Ewan, as well as a badass anonymous female, stand up to the bullies and protect Dev (because sometimes the bystander effect can be reversed and used for good).
#practicemakesperfect #jaynorthcote #helpinghand #likealover #watchingandwanting #macandjezdovalentinesday #startingfromscratch #prettyinpink #housemates #housematesseries #books #queerbooks #queererotica #bodicerippers #bookstagram #bookphotography #ilovebooks
No comments:
Post a Comment