Reviewed by Becca
TITLE: The road home
SERIES: Back in the rain #3
AUTHOR: Elen Chase
PUBLISHER: self-published
LENGTH: 145 pages
RELEASE DATE: March 15, 2020
BLURB:
Harry is living in a toxic relationship of two years that is slowly consuming him and mining his self-esteem. As he tries to put the pieces of his life back together and find the courage to move on, he reconnects with Bill, his best friend’s ex-boyfriend.The two of them will soon find themselves facing the darkest side of their hometown in a story about hardship, self-discovery, friendship and love.
Trigger warnings: explicit MM sexual content, drugs, rape (non explicit)
REVIEW:
Please do not ignore the trigger warnings. The drugs are date rape drugs and there is also an abusive relationship. Severe beatings and such take place. So please be careful.
I’ve loved this series. They’ve all hit me hard on some level and I think mostly because even those these kids are ‘grown’ in a sense, for what they’ve been through, to me they are still just babies, that life keeps dealing a crappy hand to. It’s a hard life. But the one thing that’s important in this book and in this series to remember, family is not always blood. Love is not hurtful, no matter what someone may say, and there is always hope somewhere if you look in the right place. All it takes is one person.
Harry has resented people for a while. He’s only really starting to realize how he feels and has felt about quite a few things in the last few months. Especially, when the man who used to constantly beat him for nothing, told him that he needed to try harder to make things work. And it showed him how angry and upset he’s been for a while. How hurt and grief stricken he really was. How resentful he was over something that wasn’t in his control. Or that of the person it happened to. He realizes now that his life could have been a lot worse off than it had been had it not been for Mama. Yeah, a brothel may not have been the best place to work in, but he was fed, taken care of and no one would dare hurt him or the wrath that would come on them would be bad. But now he’s floundering on his own. He’s lost his way and needs to feel needed and loved. But he doesn’t feel like he deserves love or fears everyone will just leave him in the end. And now with other stuff going on, he’s in the middle and doesn’t want to hear how dangerous it could be until it’s too late. Now he hopes someone will get to him in time. And he really hopes it’s Bill.
It sadden me to a point with Harry and how he was taking things. He lifted himself up to get out of the bad relationship and then it just seemed like he had a death wish. He was numb and I get that. But still, he kept putting himself in situations that could get him killed. He believed no one loved him, when that was so far from true, it was ridiculous. But no one could seem to reach to him to get him to truly see that they did. It was going to take something drastic to get him to see how his life was turning and for good and bad, that’s what happened. I hate it for him too. But sometimes when we are so caught up in ourselves and on that self destruct path, we can’t see anything beyond that. And it takes something harsh to shake us up and make us see. Thankfully, he had people willing to not give up on him and such, but it was still a hard story to read.
It’s a good series. And this is a good book. It’s not an easy one to get through at times, but it’s worth it in the end. True family and love always are.
RATING: 
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