Reviewed by Taylor

TITLE: More Than Everything
SERIES: Family Series #3
AUTHOR: Cardeno C.
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
LENGTH: 234 pages
BLURB: As a teenager, Charlie “Chase” Rhodes meets Scott Boone and falls head over heels in love with the popular, athletic boy next door. Charlie thinks he’s living the dream when Scott says he feels the same way. But his dreams are dashed when Scott moves unexpectedly and doesn’t return.

Years later, Chase meets brash and confident Adan Navarro, who claims all he wants is a round between the sheets. When they’re still together after eight months, Chase is convinced Adan returns his love. But then the time comes to be open about their relationship, and Adan walks away instead.

Time heals all wounds, but when Charlie runs into Scott and Adan and realizes the only two men he’s ever loved are now in love with each other, his heart breaks all over again. Scott and Adan tell Charlie they want him back, but Charlie doesn’t know if he can trust two people who have hurt him so deeply. And even if he can, why would Scott and Adan want Charlie when they already have everything with each other?

REVIEW:

Two teenage boys fall in love.  One a flamboyant, budding dancer and the other the popular, athletic boy literally next door.  They think it will last forever until Scott moves away leaving Charlie crushed.

Fast-forward to college and Charlie meets the brooding, intense foul-mouthed Adan, who makes it perfectly clear this is just sex.  Eight months later they are still together and both falling in love, until one night Charlie becomes aware of some secret, unpleasant feelings Adan has towards Charlie. And so this relationship ends.

Both Scott and Adan were Charlie’s two great loves, and he never thinks he will see them again until years later he runs into both of them and they are now a couple.  They want him to join their relationship, but Charlie doesn’t know if he can trust them again and give them his heart.

So let me preface this review stating I’m so usually not a ménage m/m romance girl, but this is Cardeno, so I figured this would be handled sweeter than and not as ulcer-inducing as perhaps another author.  And I was absolutely right.  This book was easy, natural, and even maybe made me tear-up a few times like a sap.

I love Charlie so, so much.  He’s smart and funny, and he felt like a real person that I would be friends with and want to know.  At first when Adan was introduced I wasn’t sure how I’d like him, given I really adored Scott and Charlie together.  But you know what?  I loved Adan even more, in fact, I think I preferred Charlie (Chase) and Aden together and that part of the book more than any other.  There was something about that section that had all the parts I need and seek for in a novel.  Two totally different characters meeting randomly and they slowly became friends, then lovers.  I loved that Charlie didn’t give in to Adan right away, that he called him out on his shit, that he was thoughtful towards Aden and gradually cracked Adan’s hard shell.  And they were funny together and sexy.  I could see this two men falling for each other, even though both really fought with their brains to keep that from happening, even if their hearts didn’t agree.  And Adan’s reasons for what he did?  I didn’t get angry at him.  Coming out and being comfortable with yourself doesn’t come with age.  It’s not like just because he wasn’t a “kid” anymore that being comfortable in your own skin comes easy.  Add in unaccepting parents and not fitting in or associating with the more ‘out’ sides of being gay, and I can see totally how the whole situation unraveled.

And Adan’s POV?  I think that’s when my heart crumbled.  Because it’s so easy to judge or feel righteous when you feel (justly) wronged, but then when I read everything Adan felt and how he KNEW he was screwing up, but it wasn’t something he could switch from off to on right away.  And when he said losing Charlie made him a better boyfriend, a better partner, and a better man?  That right there.  That’s what made it all worth it to me.

That isn’t to say I didn’t love Scott or his relationship with the two men.  He just had the simpler story.  He was young when he left, and Scott and him just gradually drifted apart, not quite realizing at the time just what he had lost.  But he was sweet and stable.  I would have been equally happy reading Charlie’s story with either man in a full novel.

Probably the best aspect of this book, though, was the way it was told.  Charlie shares his and Scott and Adan’s journey through a scrapbook idea of putting in pictures and explaining the moment from each picture.  Again here is where several times I teared-up like a goon.  It was poignant and special.  I really felt like I was reading and understanding these three men’s ups and downs.  I’ll admit at times I wondered if Charlie was telling us the story through the scrapbook, how were we getting the POVs from the other two men?  It didn’t feel as stream-lined as I wished, but in the end I was glad we got the other POVs and felt the book would have suffered without them.

What prevented this from being 5 stars for me were two reasons.

*One, I thought the author used several words or phrasing too often and it distracted me.  Off guard and bussing my/his lips were used often, along with others.

*The second one was that I felt once the three men got together, the book lost momentum.  I LOVED that when the three reunited the ménage didn’t happen right away.  In fact, I believe they waited 6 months.  Adan and Scott proved to Charlie that what they felt went beyond sex and they didn’t just want a third.  They wanted Charlie.  But some things just felt strange.  For instance, Adan and Scott had been together as a couple for six years and partners, yet they barely seemed to have any heat.  The sex was described as ‘okay,’ ‘fine,’ and ‘good’, but they missed topping or wanting to top Charlie.  They didn’t have any sexual encounters or flirting together without getting hot over seeing or discussing Charlie.  Them being partners felt less authentic and more as a convenient plot device to get all three together in a ménage.   I also didn’t like how all of a sudden now that Charlie was the third Adan and Scott could be their ‘true top’ selves and just have Charlie as the bottom.  What happened to the six years together of them connecting together as a couple?  It was just…strange.

Overall, though, I think this was on the sugary-sweet side, but that’s typical Cardeno and sometimes I want that, and I had a big /awwww/ moment when I finished, so me likey.

Taylor rates it –

BUY LINKS: Dreamspinner Press

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Taylor is one of the official reviewers on The Blog of Sid Love.

To read all her reviews, click the link: TAYLOR’S REVIEWS
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