Reviewed by Annika
TITLE: Sidecar
AUTHOR: Amy Lane
NARRATOR: Chris Patton
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
RELEASE DATE: April 27, 2015
LENGTH: 9 hours, 32 minutes
BLURB:
The year is 1987. The boys wear pink Izod shirts, the girls wear big hair, everyone has a stash box, and AIDS is just an ugly rumor rumbling like a thunderstorm from the cities. A teenage runaway wanders the side of the road, a heartbeat away from despair, and is rescued by a long-haired angel on a Harley. But that’s just the beginning of their story.
Josiah Daniels wanted peace and quiet and a simple life, and he had it until he rescued Casey from hunger, cold, and exhaustion. Suddenly Joe’s life is anything but simple as he and his new charge navigate a world that is changing more rapidly than the people in it. Joe wants to raise Casey to a happy and productive adulthood, and he does. But even as an adult, Casey can’t conceive of a happy life without Joe.
The trouble is getting Joe to accept that the boy he nurtured is suddenly the man who wants him. Their relationship can either die or change with the world around them. As they make a home, negotiate the new rules of growing up, and swerve around the pitfalls of modern life, Casey learns that adulthood is more than sex, Joe learns that there is no compromise in happy ever after, and they’re both forced to realize that the one thing a man shouldn’t be is alone.
REVIEW:
For the most part I’m not an Amy Lane fan. I mean her books are mostly okay to read for the moment, but rarely more than that. It’s not like I’m avoiding her books, but I don’t really go looking for them either. Before this book, the only exception was the Fish Out of Water series. So going in I didn’t have any expectations beyond an okay read.
Almost immediately I was hooked. I was feeling for Casey and the raw hand he’d been dealt in his young life. How that all changed with meeting Joe. Sidecar takes place over many years, it all starts in 1987 when Casey is only 16. Well, technically it starts with a snippet of their happily ever after in the present and then continues on with the re-telling of their romance. Anyway, when Casey was 16 he was homeless, penniless and did everything he could to survive. He was walking along a road when a man, Joe, on a bike with a sidecar stopped and offered a room and some food. Wary Casey accepted, fully expecting Joe wanting something in return.
Theirs is a romance across time. Well, at least for Casey who fell for Joe almost from the beginning. Joe took quite a few years before seeing Casey in a new light. Then again, for him to do otherwise would have felt icky – seeing as there is a 12 age gap between them. So we follow them throughout the tough beginning, where Casey slowly opens up, starts to trust, through the sacrifices Joe makes to keep Casey as a foster child. Their friendship, hardships, the laughs and sorrows. Until one day, years and years later, when it becomes more. It was honest in a way that few books are. I believed in what took place, in the characters.
Chris Patton truly brought this book to life. He made both Casey and Joe real. Made you feel what they felt. The hopelessness, the sorrow and loneliness was all there. As was the hope, friendship and the love between them. Gah, he made you feel the love between Casey and Joe. He made you love them both and travel the journey with them. Every heartbreaking moment. He had distinct voices for the different characters so it was always easy to follow along the story. Sidecar might have been my first book by Patton, but I hope it won’t be my last.
Sidecar was a beautiful love story, it wasn’t easy by any means but their hard won love was all worth it in the end.
RATING: 
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