A Dash of Salt and Pepper

I was negatively surprised by how incredibly formulaic this (audio)book was. Younger queer on the brink of doing a career far from the small town he stems from has a crisis due to job loss and boyfriend breakup, encounters older, more trad masculine man (of course bisexual because single father, could never be anything else…) in his hometown… in the end he learns to value the small city and stays there with man and child. The end. Co-starring: The cis woman best friend who is always up to support our main character, likes to drink alc and is in a happy straight marriage.

There is only one deviation from the formula: Our main character is black.

Otherwise: no surprises at all. For one second I got my hopes up because MC didn’t drink alcohol. Wow! I still haven’t found one single gay book where alcohol consumption is not used a thousand times to drive the story ahead. But a few minutes later he gives in to peer pressure, gets blackout drunk… and from there on is drinking as happily as everyone else. What a let down.

Trans* people, lesbians, ANY queer person besides MC and his crush in the book? Nope. Body shapes besides „fit and oh so muscular“? Nope. Political discussions? Nope!

Btw: I would still love to read a formulaic story where at least the male love interest is more feminine than the main character but yeah, we probably won’t find this in books by this author.