Reviewed by Stephen K
TITLE: Looking Past
SERIES: Unconditional #3
AUTHOR: Michael Bailey
PUBLISHER: Independent
LENGTH: 285 Pages
RELEASE DATE: May 7th 2021
BLURB:
Ten years ago, Ben Worthington ran away from home after a violent confrontation with his father. He’s lived with the anger and resentment that confrontation caused ever since.
To the outside world, Dylan Barrows has it all together. But he struggles with the guilt from his inability to protect his older brother from his abuser.
Tragedy brings them together, and an unknown shared history threatens to tear them apart before they can begin looking past their issues … and finally find love.
REVIEW:
In Michael Bailey’s Unconditional series we get the stories of a number of Toledo based guys that know each other though a comic book store and who have all be in or on the edges of traumatic coming out stories featuring parental rejection.
Though Robert Frost wrote “Home is the place where, when you have to go there, They have to take you in” that’s not generally been true where teens coming out as gay is involved. Of the 1.6 million homeless teens in the United States, 40% identify as LGBTQ. More than one in four of those who come out as teens are forced to leave their family homes.
In this tale, Ben is one of those. He runs away after getting a negative reaction to his coming out and years later, he and his family are still dealing with the issue. Even though Ben is intrinsically a strong character, having been failed by those who should love him, has created anger and personal trust issues that are at the core of the pathos in this tale.
One minor nit that I feel needs picking… this tale involves a “twist” concerning Dylan’s ex Joshua that was so poorly foreshadowed that when the reveal came it felt jarringly contrived. Oddly, at the same time a broken nose is mentioned and that is a masterful bit of foreshadowing in that when we later learn where the broken nose came from, it seemed almost obvious.
As the third book in this series this wraps up many of the “loose ends” that were left by the other books and is perhaps the saddest (and still perhaps the most hopeful) of this series. While the series ends on a hopeful note, there is one unredeemed character (T.J.) that might merit a later book that I’d be eager to read.
Being Michigan born and raised, I may be a bit partial as I found this Toledo Ohio based series a bit like visiting home. The environs and the attitudes of the people felt familiar and there were numerous trips between Toledo and Ann Arbor here, a trip that I’ve made scores of times. Even the mention of Dylan being fostered in Sylvania Ohio was a bit nostalgic as Sylvania was a frequent “stopping for lunch” point on my many trips through this part of the country.
That said, I’d recommend this series to even those of you unfamiliar with this part of the USA. The teen homelessness issue is a real and significant concern that doesn’t get enough attention and here it’s dealt with in a way where we see the characters involved healing their past traumas. Though there may be three-hanky moments, overall the outlook in this series is hopeful.
RATING: 
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