Reviewed by Donna
TITLE: Love It Like You Stole It
AUTHOR: Ki Brightly
PUBLISHER: NineStar Press
LENGTH: 334 Pages
RELEASE DATE: July 9, 2018
BLURB:
Michael Levine is backed into a corner. He started tearing apart cars for the local mob with the best of intentions—to save up money to pay for his mechanic certifications and impress his crush and mentor, Ben. But Michael soon finds himself in way over his head. He knows stealing is wrong, but it’s only cars, and the insurance will pay to replace them, right? What started out as a small job to make some extra bucks soon turns into a nightmare he’s not sure he’ll ever be able to find his way out of.
Ben Jelen isn’t sure where his life is going. On the surface everything looks fine. He has a successful business, he’s raising his niece into a strong person, and he has a boyfriend most guys only dream of—sexy and rich. But nothing feels right. The only things that really keep Ben’s attention anymore are his classic Road Runner, his niece, and Michael—his Meeko. Ben took him under his wing forever ago, and their love of old cars and fast driving has forged a strong bond. Ben’s days don’t feel right if he doesn’t get to see Meeko at least once. But something seems drastically wrong in Meeko’s life, and Ben hopes he can put the pieces together to help him before it’s too late.
REVIEW:
This story didn’t go the way I was expecting at all. And I’m not really sure why, because the blurb covers it pretty well, but I think it was the characters that threw me off. And not in a bad way, just… unexpected.
Meeko and Ben were both hopeless cases, but I liked them anyway. Meeko is one of those people who finds it absolutely impossible to stand up for himself. His friends are the boys that bullied him in high school, because his expertise with cars has made him useful to them and he is basically forced into a toxic friendship, whether he likes it or not. But bad friends are better than no friends as far as Meeko is concerned, because that man is just desperate to be accepted and appreciated. He has a madcap idea in his head that working in a mob run chopshop is the best way to get the money he needs to become a certified mechanic. And then that will prove to Ben that Meeko is a proper grown up who is totally relationship worthy. Which seems ridiculous when put down in words like that, but Meeko is such a “desperate to be loved” character that the author completely sold me on his stupid thought processes and actions.
Ben…well, I said I liked Ben but it’s more that I liked the way the author wrote him. Right from the beginning Meeko was my favourite character, which unfortunately made Ben the character who upset my favourite character. Did that make sense? I expected Ben to be the perfect white knight who would rescue Meeko from his stupid decisions and who would always know exactly the right thing to do and say. But he wasn’t. It would have made the story much easier and neater, but instead the author chose the messy route that had both men loving, yet hurting, the other and left me in tears towards the end there. Ben was possibly more of a mess than Meeko was due to the death of the older brother he worshipped. He was quick to push people away and reacted in frustrating ways that left me wanting to kick him in the head. But that’s a good thing! It means the author did her job, right?
The ending of the story totally made up for any violence I wanted to direct towards Ben in the chapters preceding the end. Although I do think Ben needed to do some major groveling for upsetting Meeko, that might have just been because I was #teammeeko.
I know age gap stories aren’t for everybody but I was totally sold on these characters as a couple from the start. I’ll definitely be looking to check out more books by this author.
RATING: 
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