Reviewed by Lisa
TITLE: The Only Guy 
SERIES: The Guy #2
AUTHOR: Skylar M. Cates
NARRATOR: Matt Baca
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
LENGTH: 7 hours, 47 minutes
RELEASE DATE: November 3, 2014
BLURB:
Aaron Weiss knows how to escape. Years ago, he ran from a romantic disappointment and impulsively joined the Army. Now, he’s forced to take a medical discharge, and readjusting to life at home proves a challenge.
Jesse Ross knows how to hide. He realizes he’s an oddball, and that he’s an outsider within his own family. He also knows his secret love since childhood, Aaron, only wants his good-looking, favored older brother. Yet Jesse could never completely abandon his intense feelings for Aaron. Over the years, Jesse was a faithful pen pal to him. Still, he’s shocked to his core to find Aaron on his doorstep.
As long-buried secrets and past hurts take center stage, the two are overwhelmingly drawn to each other. But it’s their future that may force them to risk everything.
REVIEW:
I really liked the first installment in this series and I liked this installment as well, yet felt it wasn’t quite as good as the first.
When they were children, Aaron crushed on Jesse’s older brother while Jess crushed on Aaron. After an argument, Jesse’s brother and Aaron stop talking and Aaron joins the Army after graduation.
While in the Army, Aaron gets an infection which damages his heart and Aaron is medically discharged. He returns back to his hometown after his stay in the Army hospital, but feels smothered by his mother.
He travels to the cabin in the woods near where the family used to vacation with Jesse’s family when they were kids and finds that Jesse lives there.
Jesse is an introverted artist who lives as much off the land as he can and is not pleased when Aaron shows up out of the blue wanting to stay there. He’s still wildly attracted to Aaron but can’t forget the kiss he saw his brother & Aaron sharing the summer the older guys quit speaking to each other. He believes Aaron still only wants his brother and still sees him as a kid. When Aaron has car trouble, he’s forced to let the older man stay with him until his car can be repaired and the pair start a friends-with-benefits relationship.
Aaron had a brief role in The Guy from Glamour as Dean Pierce’s best friend and Night Stalker teammate, while Jesse is a new character to the series. The characters from the first book also make some brief appearances in this book but this installment definitely focuses on Aaron and Jesse’s story.
I felt like this was more angsty than the first book as the guys both had medical issues they battled and Aaron’s took a serious turn near the end.
Overall, I liked it although I had an issue with Jesse’s attitude regarding his anxiety disorder. It’s my feeling that having characters think of anxiety and/or depression as weakness instead of actual medical conditions continues to stigmatize these illnesses. Other than my issues with that, I enjoyed the guys working out their feelings for each other. I recommend this story for people who like the friends-to-lovers trope and MCs who overcome their physical limitations. This could probably be read/listened to as a standalone however I feel like the reader will have a richer experience if read in order.
Matt Baca has a great voice for younger characters. His timing is spot on and he doesn’t mispronounce a lot of words. While I don’t necessarily consider him one of my favorite narrators, I do enjoy listening to his work. Yet for this particular book it seemed like his character voices weren’t easily distinguished from each other and that had a big impact on my enjoyment of this book.
RATING: 
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