Reviewed by Chris
TITLE: Pretty in Pink 
SERIES: Housemates #6
AUTHOR: Jay Northcote
PUBLISHER: Self-Published
LENGTH: 211 pages
RELEASE DATE: February 21, 2018
BLURB:
Ryan isn’t looking for a relationship with a guy—and Johnny isn’t looking for a relationship at all.
Ryan’s always been attracted to tall, leggy blondes—normally of the female variety. When Johnny catches his eye at a party, Ryan’s interest is piqued even though he’s never been with a guy before. The attraction is mutual, and the amazing night that follows opens Ryan’s eyes to his bisexuality.
Experience has taught Johnny that love hurts. Staying single is safer, and there’s no need for complicated relationships when hooking up is easy. When he moves in next door to Ryan, they’re both interested in picking up where they left off, and it seems like an ideal arrangement: convenient, mutually satisfying, and with no strings attached.
Despite their best intentions to keep things casual, they develop an emotional connection alongside the physical one. Both begin to want more from the relationship but are afraid to admit it. If they’re going to work things out, they need to start being honest—first with themselves, and then with each other.
Although this book is part of the Housemates series, it has new main characters, a satisfying happy ending, and can be read as a standalone.
REVIEW:
The sixth book in Jay Northcote’s Housemates series, Pretty in Pink is a story about Ryan and Johnny, two college-age guys who have absolutely no plans for anything more than a one-night stand, but find themselves quickly falling for each other. Not that either of them has any clue what to do with that–most certainly not talk about it it, to be sure.
This book had a lot of things in its set up that had me really interested. Ryan is a guy who has never really acted on his sometimes attraction to men, and Johnny is a fem gay man who doesn’t give two fucks about how not “macho” he is. There are kinks and plenty of hot sex as well.
Unfortunately I’ve always struggled with stories like this one, because I think like 80% of their interactions are sex-related, and that is not nearly enough for me to feel any real connection to the characters, or for their romance. And while I can’t say the sex was badly written, there was just too much of it for me. I kept thinking “just give it time, they have to talk at some point,” but they hardly ever did. To be honest, by the time the end happened I wasn’t really sure why either of them wanted to do more than just hook-up. I felt chemistry between them, but hardly any romance. And, well, I felt like a chocolate-junky who was denied a fix and told to go eat a carrot instead. Yeah, I love carrots, but I wanted that damn cupcake! (And yes, I know, most people don’t equate sex to carrots, but sex is mostly what I put up with in love stories so I can get the gooey romance bits. Just the way I’m wired.)
I feel kinda bad giving this such a lackluster rating, but it hardly connected with me at all. Maybe if there had been some plot outside the romance I would have had an easier time with it? It would have given me a bit more character interaction, that’s the truth. Which would have been great because what little we got here between Johnny, Ryan, and their various friends was well written. It also didn’t try to derail the plot to point out all the character cameos, either, which I appreciated. I like all the MCs from past books, but trying to shoehorn in their stories to this one would have made it even more of a mess.
So I guess what I came down to is that this book, the way it is set up to focus on the sexual aspects of their relationship, didn’t work for me and kept me only half-interested in the story. But if you don’t have the same problem connecting to characters like I do, you might find you like it a lot better than me. I really do love the sex scenes–well, maybe not the doctor-play one, that is so not my kink–but the rest are really good. I’d say give the sample a try and if you are interested by the end of that, you will probably be ok.
RATING:
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