Relationships 201 - Alix Bekins
Once again, Dreamspinner Press strikes gold. Really, in all the books I read from them, there is only one I didn't like (and that one I hated fiercely... Taste of Love if you want to know what not to buy) and I pretty much loved all the rest. They have Marie Calmes, Sean Kennedy, Urban & Roux, Aile, Tachna and plenty more others I wouldn't miss a book from.
I haven't read anything by Alix Bekins before though.
I'm not usually a big fan of characters still in school or even in college, I don't really care about the problems they usually have. But and there is a big but here, it's not, for once, about a first relationship or discovering sexual orientation or coming out to parents. It's Relationships *201*. And that was already a nice change for that genre.
So we've got Stephan who is twenty-four, has a nice boyfriend Eric, is a good graduate student, has many friends who seems like a wonderful if not crazy support system. And this year, he is going to be the TA for sexy new professor Jeff.
What I loved about it :
- It's just life, there is no bad guy. Eric isn't an evil cheating bastard (like I feared at first), he really is as nice as he appears, he is just not very compatible with Stephan. And that's okay.
- No cheating. Seriously, that's more important to me than many things. Yet, that doesn't mean Stephan hadn't wandering eyes and a healthy imagination of course. :)
- The book is all about Stephan who he is, what he is and isn't and how he reacts to what's happening around him. We don't know anything about what's inside Eric's or Jeff's head before Stephan knows. The reader is really immersed in his life and roots and cheers for him. And shares his angst.
- The sexual tension between Stephan and Jeff is thick. UST abounds and yet we don't really know what's going on inside Jeff's head.
- I love love love they don't just fall in bed after 20 pages with the rest of the book as useless drama. Nope. It really is a romance novel (not a pornish one disguised as romance) and I would even say I wasn't always sure who Stephan was going to end up with. Which could have frustrating but really wasn't.
- Jeff and Stephan are friends first, and yes Stephan isn't blind, but they're friends and they geek together on history stuff (and yes history is one of my least favorite subject ever, and I know nothing about pretty much every historical period but there was just enough details to give us a feel about it and still keep it interesting). I love nerds. Of all kinds. Working side by side in the library, talking about obscure things while drinking too many coffees. You really feel the friendship, it's not just words like in too many romance novels.
- When they actually have sex for the first time it's in Jeff's office on his desk, on students papers.
H-O-T. Especially if you spent most of your student life fantasizing about your professors which was obviously not my case (except, you know for every math teacher I ever had - algebra for ever -, a few in computer science, etc. etc.).
- Stephan loves sex. And thinks about sex pretty much all the time. And it was funny. I like that he is so comfortable with who he is.
Strangely, Eric, I didn't like much at first (when I thought he had found someone else during the summer or something like that) was the character I could understand the most in the end. He has a stick in the ass when it concerns drugs and booze. While I was reading the novel, I thought he was overreacting about Stephan's wilder nights. But when I think about it now, I found that he was much more patient that I would have been in the same situation. And during the break-up, though Stephan is the more experienced of the two, the oldest, it's Eric who find the strength to end things. They both know it's over but Stephan is still trying to delay.
Anyway, it was so good, I called Maryse to tell her I wouldn't come to the Xmas baking workshop she organized, so anxious I was to finish it. Or maybe it was just a convenient excuse because people I don't like were also going. Whatever. I read it all in one afternoon and didn't stop for anything.
And I will totally read it again. See if knowing the end will change how I see the characters. What would be awesome is Jeff's side of the story, I would love reading that. We don't know much about his struggles and his thoughts and his desires even at the end, because the whole book is from Stephan's POV. It would be great to see how the other side lived through these months. When I enjoy a story I want to know everything... and I really loved it.