Reviewed by Roberta
TITLE: Special Needs #2
SERIES: Special Needs
AUTHOR: K. A. Merikan
PUBLISHER: Acerbi&Villani ltd
LENGTH: 420 pages
BLURB:— Caretaking. Like a boss. —
So, Ryan isn’t disabled. Okay, he is, but he’s only got a foot missing, that’s hardly a reason to pretend he’s paraplegic and ride around in a wheelchair! Now Liam has to deal with being lied to since the moment they met, and he is not a happy camper. He doesn’t understand why sweet, innocent Ryan would do such a thing. What if there are other things his boyfriend lied about? Or ex-boyfriend for that matter.
Ryan is in a state of complete panic at the sole thought of losing Liam, his first proper boyfriend ever. But the show must go on and after the fire in his hotel, Ryan can’t only focus on his love life. He’s a serious businessman after all. Marketing, networking and promoting will be his new love life. Who needs a boyfriend anyway, when in the end, every guy is either a devotee, or freaks out about his transability? Yet… maybe if Liam stayed around the hotel, they could at least make up and become friends.
There is one more option to consider – walking. If Ryan started walking, would Liam want to be with him again? But how far can he bend to Liam’s wishes before he breaks?
“Special Needs” is book two out of a two part series.
REVIEW:
This is the 2nd part of a two part series featuring Ryan and Liam. This book centers more on how these two are trying to really become more of a real couple and the struggles that they have to overcome in order for their relationship to survive.
This book seems to really pull more into Ryan’s world. How he is affected by transability, BIID(Body Integrity Identity Disorder). We get to see how Ryan copes when he feels that things are spiraling out of his control, hence the self-harm.
There is also the threat of losing his fetish B&B. After a fire in one of his rooms and promoting like crazy, things still are not going in his favor. Ryan is getting further and further in debt and isn’t having any luck getting people to come to stay at his dream B&B.
He’s also having problems with Liam. Liam is so upset with Ryan over the fact that he can actually walk and letting everyone believe that he can’t. He doesn’t really see a way to keep Liam with him unless he starts to walk again. The problem with that is Ryan hasn’t told Liam about his transability and BIID.
Liam on the other hand is frustrated and hurt that Ryan kept from him that he could walk. It takes a couple of weeks before Liam and Ryan get it together enough to talk about Ryan’s misleading Liam and decide that they’ll try and work it out. Liam wants so very much to help Ryan see that there isn’t anything wrong with walking and to keep him motivated.
Again, there is some sexy times in the book. The best part of that is that it really didn’t overtake the book. It was still really character-driven and that kept me involved in the story. I wanted to see how these two men got along in a relationship that was still evolving. There were lots of feelings of inadequacy on both parts. Ryan for not being what he thought he should be for Liam and on Liam’s part for not knowing how to help Ryan.
I will say that this book gave you insight into transability and BIID. Not a whole lot, but enough that you got more of a feel for Ryan and what his thought process was. That helped to understand why he did what he did. How he was feeling. That made me fall just a bit more in love with him. He seemed so naïve and innocent in what he said and what he did.
This book showed that falling in love is never an easy thing. That there is a lot of hard work involved in starting and maintaining a relationship. The authors showed that just how hard it was for both Liam and Ryan. That they both had some issues to work out, the most important ones was being honest and accepting the person you love, flaws and all.
I will say that the slight mystery that was alluded to, well…you knew who it was so there was no real surprise. The best part of that was Liam and Ryan figuring that part out and how they dealt with it.
These two books were actually pretty good and I would recommend them. I will say that you must have significant time to put into these two books as they are very long. But I feel that it’s worth it to really get into the character’s headspace.
RATING: 
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