![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
This is written in a tight POV from one of the main characters, Tom. Tom grew up incredibly wealthy, the child of a widower. It's not clear how his mom died. Possibly in childbirth? Illness shortly thereafter? Anyway, she's not in the picture. Tom's sophomore year of college, his dad gets charged with running a huge Ponzi scheme. This first leads to Tom being barricaded in his house with his father while the press surround them on every side until they run out of food--delivery services have proven unwilling to deal with getting through the press--being betrayed by one of his friends to the press, catching his father having tried to commit suicide and having to call the ER, and then, when the charges are actually set, all of the assets being frozen.
Tom basically decides that he desperately needs his college degree to dig himself out of the mess, but not having any financial help, he starts living out of his car and driving it as a gypsy cab in the hours when he can't drive a legal cab. He does this the entire summer and then shows back up at school to find out he has a roommate, Reese, who Does Not Want a Roommate, and was specifically promised by the school he would not have one.
We later find out why Reese is so het up about this issue, and frankly, it does not come as a surprise that his previous roommate stood by and watched as Reese was assaulted by some of the roommate's friends the year before, largely for the crime of being out and gay. Reese's father, also a single parent, is super in Reese's corner, and when he finds out about it, bullies the school into making sure Reese will be at least slightly more safe.
Which the school promises to do and promptly drops the fucking ball on. Reese embarks on a campaign to run Tom off with his Gayness, including regularly bringing back hookups, even when Tom is in the room. (Something that Reese does without any type of discussion or consent on Tom's part and despite the fact that Tom finds it hot, that honestly bothers me a lot.)
Tom, however, already has a pretty good idea that he's bi, or, as he often calls it "equal opportunity." It doesn't work out the way Reese wants it to. Or, arguably, it does, because after about six misunderstandings caused by the fact that Tom has trust issues from here to Siberia, and Reese is doing his best to fuck his way past his trauma, the two of them end up getting together. It's actually from there that things get particularly interesting, as Reese is out and Tom is not ready to be, for a whole slew of reasons. There's a lot of compromise on both parts, and working through things, and fights, and working to be better for the other person.
One of the things I particularly liked about this book was the frank acknowledgement that being bi means a person is capable of dating the other gender, and that doing so is simpler not just in terms of prejudice but in terms of meeting partners. I also appreciated that it called out the problem of bi invisibility when bi persons enter into relationships, and the way both the het and queer communities have issues with the identity. Worthwhile as well was the unpacking of the struggle of being out even in an environment where Tom is aware that it's most likely to be easily accepted.
I was pleased that the two of them genuinely broke up and were apart for a chunk of time. I think it's true of a lot of relationships that begin when people are young that a break is often necessary to define who you are as people apart from each other and if the relationship works if you are those people in it.
I didn't love that while we know Tom is an unreliable narrator, it's not clear just HOW unreliable until pretty late in the book, and then it's a little bit harder to grapple with how much you can support his motives or not.
In addition, I felt like the climactic moments were all weirdly placed. I appreciated that Reese didn't wig when he figured out a secret Tom had been keeping because he was ashamed, but at the same time, it's been this huge thing for like three-fourths of the book and then it's just neatly resolved in about a page. Or, when they break up, we don't find out that Reese has officially done so until Tom thinks about it in a flashback.
I suppose I just felt like a lot of time the real heft of where the emotions should be isn't where they end up, or maybe that there's just not enough of them, period. I didn't mind the book, but it never really grabbed me, either.
Tom basically decides that he desperately needs his college degree to dig himself out of the mess, but not having any financial help, he starts living out of his car and driving it as a gypsy cab in the hours when he can't drive a legal cab. He does this the entire summer and then shows back up at school to find out he has a roommate, Reese, who Does Not Want a Roommate, and was specifically promised by the school he would not have one.
We later find out why Reese is so het up about this issue, and frankly, it does not come as a surprise that his previous roommate stood by and watched as Reese was assaulted by some of the roommate's friends the year before, largely for the crime of being out and gay. Reese's father, also a single parent, is super in Reese's corner, and when he finds out about it, bullies the school into making sure Reese will be at least slightly more safe.
Which the school promises to do and promptly drops the fucking ball on. Reese embarks on a campaign to run Tom off with his Gayness, including regularly bringing back hookups, even when Tom is in the room. (Something that Reese does without any type of discussion or consent on Tom's part and despite the fact that Tom finds it hot, that honestly bothers me a lot.)
Tom, however, already has a pretty good idea that he's bi, or, as he often calls it "equal opportunity." It doesn't work out the way Reese wants it to. Or, arguably, it does, because after about six misunderstandings caused by the fact that Tom has trust issues from here to Siberia, and Reese is doing his best to fuck his way past his trauma, the two of them end up getting together. It's actually from there that things get particularly interesting, as Reese is out and Tom is not ready to be, for a whole slew of reasons. There's a lot of compromise on both parts, and working through things, and fights, and working to be better for the other person.
One of the things I particularly liked about this book was the frank acknowledgement that being bi means a person is capable of dating the other gender, and that doing so is simpler not just in terms of prejudice but in terms of meeting partners. I also appreciated that it called out the problem of bi invisibility when bi persons enter into relationships, and the way both the het and queer communities have issues with the identity. Worthwhile as well was the unpacking of the struggle of being out even in an environment where Tom is aware that it's most likely to be easily accepted.
I was pleased that the two of them genuinely broke up and were apart for a chunk of time. I think it's true of a lot of relationships that begin when people are young that a break is often necessary to define who you are as people apart from each other and if the relationship works if you are those people in it.
I didn't love that while we know Tom is an unreliable narrator, it's not clear just HOW unreliable until pretty late in the book, and then it's a little bit harder to grapple with how much you can support his motives or not.
In addition, I felt like the climactic moments were all weirdly placed. I appreciated that Reese didn't wig when he figured out a secret Tom had been keeping because he was ashamed, but at the same time, it's been this huge thing for like three-fourths of the book and then it's just neatly resolved in about a page. Or, when they break up, we don't find out that Reese has officially done so until Tom thinks about it in a flashback.
I suppose I just felt like a lot of time the real heft of where the emotions should be isn't where they end up, or maybe that there's just not enough of them, period. I didn't mind the book, but it never really grabbed me, either.
