When there's far too many books to pick from, what do you do? Naturally, panic and read nothing while you debate (with yourself) on what to read for a week or so. I finally decided on "Hidden Scars" by Andi Jaxon. It's the first novel in her Darby U Hockey Boys series.
["Charles Preston Carmichael is the most infuriating man I’ve ever met.
I want to sock the golden boy of college hockey right in the mouth.
He enjoys telling me everything I’m messing up. Publicly.
And since he’s my roommate for the next year, I can’t avoid him.
Yet there’s something about him that makes me watch him.
Something dark.
A secret I want to uncover.
When he returns from a weekend away, broken and haunted, I can’t keep my distance anymore.
He needs someone and I’ll be damned if it’s not me.
Soon my life no longer revolves around hockey, but the nightmares he’s living with.
Desperately I want to save him but I can’t, not yet. The timing has to be just right.
Can I watch him destroy himself as he tries to hold tight to the things that matter or will I be the final hit in the destruction of his life?"]
This book DESTROYED me. It was a crying, sobbing, emotional mess. This book is so sweet and so dark and so soft and so toxic and so fucking messed up, but I looooooved it. It was glorious in all of its trigger warnings and making me cry (post book hangover) while watching The Office.
And the trigger warnings start off STRONG, like first page of the prologue graphic violence and abuse (physical and psychological). You think you're prepared, but I'm going to tell you right fucking now: you're now. Like Preston has all the demons and all the reasons to hate everyone and to shut himself down and to never let anyone close. Too fucking bad Jermey just (accidentally) plows straight through those walls (which helped Preston, having someone in his corner, but also made the thoughts of self hate from ptsd stronger).
Part of me hopes the next book is easier on my emotions, but the other part of me is saying "bring it."
Trigger Warnings: anxiety, hospitalization, critical talk about diets/food, physical abuse, psychological abuse, suicide (on page but not graphic), and more.
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