Reviewed by Sadonna

TITLE:  Whatever He Needs

AUTHOR:  Mia Kerick

PUBLISHER:  Boroughs Publishing Group

LENGTH:  324 pages

RELEASE DATE:  May 4, 2021

BLURB:  

DADDY ISSUES

Nightclub dancer, Dimmy Cirillo, is living a nightmare. He doesn’t want to be the boy-toy his father is pimping him out to be, but he has no way out.

Construction-company heir, Liam McAllister, wasn’t looking to become anyone’s white knight, but he couldn’t stop himself from helping the willowy, tattooed man who takes his breath away. But Liam isn’t out, and he won’t tell his father – the repercussions would be disastrous. His only truth is found in Dimmy’s love.

If Liam waits too long to be the man he knows he should be, he risks losing Dimmy. Worse, Dimmy might fall back into his father’s clutches.

Both men have to face standing up for themselves and for their love. It’s the fight of their lives, and they have to win.

REVIEW:

Liam’s is a closeted wealthy guy who is taking the summer after finishing college working for his father.  Supposedly he’s thinking about going to med school (and should have been studying for his MCATs in my humble opinion) and hanging out at the local gay bar where he becomes infatuated with the beautiful vacant go-go boy who dances there.  He’s obviously in his own world while he’s dancing, but Liam witnesses him being abused by the boss, who it turns out it the boy’s father.  Alva, the bartender gives him to scoop on Dimitri, “Dimmy” to his friends and the crap that he has to put up with from Gregory, the bar owner.  Liam is pissed, but he doesn’t want to give things away. Liam’s father owns the building and Liam is supposed to be checking out the place and providing intel to his dad about whether or not they should be making changes.  Needless to say, that seems pretty obvious.

Liam can’t stay away and when he sees Dimmy being harassed, he rescues him and takes him home.  To his mansion.  Which blows Dimmy’s mind.  But he’s safe and he begins to trust Liam.  Liam doesn’t want to push Dimmy and he does tell him he’s not out.  But then Gregory pushes Dimmy to do more and more disgusting stuff with men for money that Gregory keeps so that Dimmy at his mercy – with no money, no job outside of that, he’s totally dependent.  So Liam rescues him from a bad situation one night and so Dimmy trades one set of problems for another.  Because now he’s dependent on Liam and there is very much an imbalance in their relationship.  And beyond that, there is the little detail about Liam not being out.  And so difficulties ensue.  So much so that Dimmy can’t see a way forward if he’s not Liam’s equal.

Overall, this was a good story, but I can’t say that I enjoyed reading it.  There is so much abuse of Dimmy from an absolute maggot of a father.  Luckily he had some good friends who tried to look out for him.  Liam took time to come to grips with his truth which I would understand and empathize with to a great degree.  It’s not easy to change what he always thought his life would be like and his fear of losing that life was palpable.  This of course hurt Dimmy because he was a bit Liam’s “dirty little secret” and wanted to keep their relationship on the DL.  Poor Dimmy was already dealing with feelings of worthlessness. The fact that his father was willing to pimp him out for various and progressively degrading “jobs” and keeping all the cash – blaming him for his money problems and telling him he “owed him” for keeping a roof over his head – had already done a number of Dimmy as far as what he would ever have to offer someone like Liam.  There were a few one-dimensional characters in this story – including Austin, a guy who wanted Liam, and Gregory, Dimmy’s father.  I don’t know – maybe I’m lucky I’ve never met anyone so abusive to their own kid, but he came off to me as a bit of a cartoon villain.  The story got a bit too melodramatic for me with the ultimate rescue and the cavalry coming to save the day.  Some of the story dragged for me a bit as well which took away from the story.  I did LOVE Tilly, Liam’s sister who had his number immediately 🙂  She is a total badass and I’d love to read her story sometime.  Recommended, but be forewarned about the drama.

RATING: 

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