Reviewed by Cheryl
TITLE: Better Together 
AUTHOR: BL Maxwell
PUBLISHER: Self Published
LENGTH: 322 pages
RELEASE DATE: May 15, 2018
BLURB:
Since being thrown out of his home by his parents, Caden has been struggling to survive on the streets.
He lives in constant fear, stresses over his next meal, and dreads trying to find a safe place to sleep at night. He eventually finds an unlocked car and settles in to sleep, but is soon interrupted when someone steals the car. With little choice but to ride along, Caden soon learns that first impressions aren’t always correct.
Seventeen-year-old Damario has been raising his little brother and sister by himself since his parents were deported. He never knew how hard it was going to be paying the bills and making sure there was always food on the table. Or how hard it would be to hold his family together when they all depended on him to do it. He finds himself stealing cars to make ends meet, but he never expected to find someone sleeping in the back of one of them. And he really didn’t expect this stowaway to change his life.
When Damario brings Caden home, it was supposed to be just for a shower and a hot meal, but he can hardly kick him out onto the streets again. There is no way he could have seen that by saving Caden that night, he was also saving himself. When Damario’s world starts to fall apart, they both realize that the answer to all of their problems is helping each other, and although the world tries to drive them apart, they really are better together.
REVIEW:
I’ve just finished reading the book and I’m still feeing warm and squishy. Although the pace is slow and the story very domestic, there’s a lot going on. The story follows two seventeen-year-olds, one homeless after being thrown out by his parents for being gay, and the other struggling to take care of his siblings after his parent were deported to Mexico. After a chance meeting, Caden moves in with Rio first out of kindness, then friendship, and finally love.
Apart from the negative reaction of Caden’s parents there isn’t any homophobia and nothing that happens is fuelled by the boys’ sexuality. Perhaps they have it too easy in that regard, but they certainly don’t have it easy in any other regard.
To be perfectly honest, this is not the best written book I’ve read. Sometimes the writing can be immature with quite a bit of repetition and some style issues. It can also be a little unrealistic at times, for example I don’t think anyone would leave their young siblings alone with a homeless man he’d met only hours earlier. However, what it might lack in finesse it more than makes up for in heart. There were times when I teared up, and I don’t do that very often. Far too often for me I find stories, even technically perfect ones, dry and lacking emotion, but this certainly wasn’t one of them.
All the characters we meet, from the MC’s, both Rio’s and Cayden’s siblings, to a random homeless man Cayden meets at a shelter, are engaging and “real” although sometimes it felt as if people were too friendly too fast. I didn’t find that a turn off because this was such a feel-good book I really didn’t want to have to deal with too much drama. There was plenty of that in the day-to-day lives of the boys, especially when things went wrong. Of course things went wrong sometimes, as they always do in every family, but it was the way the boys dealt with it and the results they got that made the book what it is.
After writing this review I had to look up the stats and couldn’t believe it was over 300 pages. It really is a page-turner because it sucks you into family life and makes you care, even when they’re searching for recipes on Pinterest or doing the laundry.
This isn’t a book to read for intellectual stimulation, or to get you perched on the edge of your seat, but it is a perfect book to read with a cup of coffee when you have a few hours to spare and want to come away feeling that the world isn’t such a bad place after all, and if Rio and Cayden can find their happy place among all the curved balls life throws at them, then there’s hope for us all.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes a straightforward, honest book with a slow-burn love and a very much young adult feel then grab this as soon as you can and don’t let it sit on your to-be-read list for too long.
RATING: 
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