Reviewed by Roberta
TITLE: Drifting
SERIES: Finding Our Way #3
AUTHOR: Jayson James
PUBLISHER: David Whitney Jr.
LENGTH: 278 pages
BLURB:
What happens when the person you love is having doubts?
These two boyfriends have been through a lot. Best friends since childhood, fell in love in high school and thought they would be together forever. They stuck together even when their friends and family found out about their relationship. Struggling with challenge after challenge, they have finally made it to college and are living on their own. Living together is a whole new world and being open with their relationship is even more so.
Spending every day together as a couple they begin to learn about their differences. Things that never bothered them are now annoying traits driving a wedge between them. Can their relationship survive their differences? Can it handle new friends and new romances? Will they find their way together or will they drift apart?
REVIEW:
This book was the third book in a series about Derrick and Justin. They had been friends since childhood and grew to become lovers in high school. This book is about their time in college.
Derrick and Justin have started college and the only bad part that they aren’t in the same colleges. They end up going to the same making the change to the same college and rooming together as well. This allows them to really be in the relationship and see each other constantly.
Derrick in way more introverted than Justin, who is the totally social butterfly. This makes it hard to spend quality time together when one wants to go out and party and meet people and the other wants to just chill at home. It’s hard to break out of your natural inclinations and push past your comfort zones. These two young men, who are trying to figure out how to navigate their personal lives and school are not having an easy go at it.
Derrick and Justin seem to have the fairytale relationship and yet, as everyone goes through growing pains, the fact that they love each other is never really the problem. It’s that they are both growing up and not yet secure in themselves. There are selfish moments as with everyone who changes and grows. These two were not exempt from that. After months of fighting decide to break up and try to work on being friends.
This is their journey of growing out of the childish dreams of love and growing up. They still room together and are meeting and dating other people. They are being young and doing foolish things. They are exploring who they are and yet, they both still love each other.
There are two other characters POV’s that we get in this book, Ryan and Ian. They are friends of Justin and Derrick and they also tell their stories of longing for a boyfriend. For someone who love and be loved by them. To see that they too were having problems in finding someone that wanted to date them and not pull a one-off. These two guys were sweet and kind and yet, they had enough differences to see how that could work. I loved Ian’s blathering on and on when he got nervous and how he was a stress or bored eater. I liked that Ryan was shy and introverted like Derrick.
The secondary characters in this book were just fun for me. I loved the twins. They made me smile whenever they were on the page. Hayden and Scott stood out more for me than the rest as they were the straight guy friends of Ryan and Ian mostly, but they also were friends with Justin and Derrick. These guys just gave so much love and support to their friends that I really liked them. They showed what true friendship was. That even though they laughed and joked, they only really wanted the best for them.
There was a bit of sex in this book, but it wasn’t explicit. It was to show that these young men didn’t really know that they wanted and sex is a good way to feel connected to someone. It’s not a bad thing, but is showed that in wanting more from someone, you need to show that you aren’t rushing into bed and hoping that it will turn into something more. All of these boys had to learn this lesson and surprisingly they did.
This was a wonderful coming of age story for all of the boys. It was nice to see that even being young and making mistakes and trying to do what’s best not only for yourself but for others that you love is so important. These four young men are on a journey and they now know that it make it with those you love and who love you, that there must be communication.
I must admit that at first I wasn’t really sure about the 4 alternate POV’s, but as the story went along, it grew on me. I realized that I truly liked Ian and Ryan and I cared about them and wanted them to meet and fall in love as they were so perfect for each other. I loved how Ryan just touching Ian could stop his blathering. It was so sweet and it made me smile.
This is a good book coming of age/new adult book. I enjoyed myself as I was reading these boys struggling to find what truly mattered to them and learn to laugh and have fun. To not always take what’s in front of you. I really liked the fact that Derrick and Justin, who were this “perfect” couple had to learn that you have to work at making a relationship work. That it’s not always easy.
RATING: 
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