Reviewed by Carissa

TITLE:  Not Just Friends

AUTHOR:  Jay Northcote

PUBLISHER:  Dreamspinner Press

LENGTH:  200 pages

BLURB:  Leaving home to go to university is an exciting phase in anyone’s life. One that’s full of new places, new friends, and new experiences. But Lewis is not prepared for the sudden and intense crush he develops on his out-and-proud flatmate, Max—given that Lewis had always assumed he was straight. Max starts dating another guy, and Lewis’s jealousy at seeing them together forces him to confront his growing attraction.

When Max’s relationship goes awry, Lewis is the one to comfort him and one thing leads to another. But after a night together, Lewis is devastated that Max wants to go back to being just friends. Lewis tries his best to move on and their friendship survives, but the feelings he has for Max don’t go away. He faces other challenges as he deals with coming out to his parents and needs Max’s support more than ever. But Lewis isn’t the only one who’s conflicted. When Max finally admits he cares for Lewis too, Lewis must decide whether he dares risk his heart again on being more than just friends.

REVIEW:  

College is good for all sorts of things.  Getting smashed on cheap alcohol.  Hooking up with random strangers when smashed on cheap alcohol.  Strangling your friends for ‘peer pressuring’ you into that last shot of cheap alcohol the night before a biology midterm that you barely studied for because you were too busy pining for your incredibly hot English prof and planning on how to woo him with your dazzling insight into the homoerotic subtext in Dickens’ Our Mutual Friend ….  See, it is good for all sorts of things.  (Though, let’s keep the last bit about mytheEnglish prof just between us friends, yes?)

Surprisingly, it also turns out that college great for other things as well.  Take Max and Lewis:

Lewis knew that going to uni was going to require a few changes in his life.  He’d have to cook his own food, do his own laundry, force himself out of bed at god-awful hours in the morning to attend boring lectures.  He’s looking forward to it though, even if the idea of being a grown-up is mildly terrifying.  He did not expect, however, to find himself bowled over by his attraction to his hot, and very gay, flatmate, Max.  Especially since he’s straight.  Straight guys don’t check out other dude’s asses, do they?  Not that he can do anything about the strange attraction, since Max soon finds himself in a relationship.  And Lew is straight.  And not at all losing his mind from having to hear Max and his stupid boyfriend going at it in the next room.

But time (and sexual frustration) has a way of wearing down one’s defenses, and Lewis is starting to allow himself to remember that he hasn’t always been as straight as he claims.  And when Max sadly breaks up with his no-good asshole of a boyfriend, and Max and Lew try drinking their sorrows away, one thing leads to another, and another leads to hands and mouths going where no man has gone before (at least outside of Lew’s dreams).  But like all good dreams, when Lew wakes up there is a lot of disappointment, and a mess to clean up.  Though his dreams, at least, never told him they wanted to just be friends.

Clearly I missed out a lot when I decided to save myself (a lot) of money and live at home while I attended uni.  Had I known that college was full of apparently straight hot boys just waiting for the right moment to jump their roommates, I would have camped out in the dorms, with some popcorn, and watched the drama go down (you don’t think security would have minded, do you?).  But alas, I missed out on this fun bit of uni life, and will have to settle for reading about the lust and losses of gay boys in love.  It is a hard job, but someone has to do it.

This was a slightly angsty, but terribly fun story about Lewis, who falls horribly in love, and Max who really needs to work on him communication skills (though his other skills seem to be brushed up on, quite nicely).  There were certainly times (quite a few, in fact) that I wanted to shake Max, and watching Lew pine for the man, while trying to maintain some type of a friendship, was hard, but this book handled both aspects very well.  I never felt like Max was using Lewis, and while I was totally feeling Lew’s heartache, it didn’t swamp the story with depressing cloud of heartbreaking funk.  I think their friendship, and how it progresses is a great asset to this story.   It takes them, and us, a bit of time to get to the point of I-love-yous, but when it does we are fully prepared to see it come to a head.  I trusted that it was love, and not just two men lost in lust, because of the problems they have overcome, and the time they have spent getting to know each other.

There is also a great cast of secondary characters in this book.  I love how all the flatmates interacted, and how everyone seemed to have their own place.  Yet no one came out sounding like a cliche, and everyone had enough depth that I could feel like their lives lived on outside of their page time.

Lewis’s coming to grips with his sexuality was interesting to read.  And it was nicely paired with all the family issues that Lew comes to deal with.  Not only does he find himself having to confront the whole ‘gay’ issue, but he is coming to find that life as a grown up means that not everything is going to be as rose-tinted as he would like.  There is a lot going on that he chose not to see, not only with himself, but with his family, and how he deals with it all shows me that he is on his way to becoming a rather great adult.  Though, I still feel like glaring at his dad (but that is likely more about my daddy issues, than Lew’s).

Nothing overly shocking happens in this book, which makes it a perfect read for when you need some angst-light reading.  There is wonderful tension created between the two MCs, and a really good story going on around them, so that you find yourself four hours later, cold tea on the bedside table, and sighing over the last few sentences of the book.  A few formatting errors did show up, but there was nothing there that distracted terribly from the overall story.  And while I would have loved for Max to pull his head out of his ass a few chapters earlier, I think that time was wisely spent by Lewis as he tried to fit this new revelation about himself into his current life and family.  This book was a last minute decision to pick up for review, and I can quite easily say that I am really glad I did.  I can never get enough college boys, coming out, falling in love, angst.

RATING:

BUY LINKS: Dreamspinner Press