Reviewed by Valerie
TITLE: The Gift That Keeps on Taking
AUTHOR: B.J. Irons
PUBLISHER: Self-Published
LENGTH: 164 pages
RELEASE DATE: November 28, 2021
BLURB:
First, he took away my coming out moment.
Next, he took my scratch-off and won $77,777 for himself.
Then, he took my first boyfriend away from me.
Despite how crazy he drives me, I am still obsessed with thinking about him. It’s sick!
Christian Delgado is the gift that keeps on taking.
The Perkins and Delgado families meet on the weekend between Christmas and New Year’s annually at their joint single-family home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. This long-standing tradition has become an annoyance to Liam Perkins, a high school senior, who is still in the closet to his family. Liam is forced to have to hang out with the Delgado’s son, Christian, during this yearly holiday get together.
Everything about Christian annoys Liam. From his suave looks, to his popularity and athleticism, and even his laid back, carefree personality. On their most recent Christmas family vacation, Liam planned to come out to his parents, but somehow Christian managed to make that night all about him, too.
Liam has had to put up with Christian taking everything from him and he is determined to somehow put a stop to it. But little does Liam know that Christian has kept some secrets about him for years that will soon surface, causing Liam to second-guess all of his former opinions about Christian Delgado.
REVIEW:
The Gift That Keeps on Taking is a holiday romance about Liam and Christian’s growing relationship, revolving around their families’ joint, annual vacations each Christmas.
Liam seems to be the only student in his high school who doesn’t worship golden-boy, Christian Delgado. He’s just too perfect, too popular, and he just doesn’t like him. Unfortunately, their families are friends and they always travel to Rehoboth Beach, DE, together, but at school the boys are merely acquaintances. Liam feels he’s always being one-upped by Christian.
The first forty percent of the book covers the year between vacations, from halfway through senior year to halfway through their freshman year of college. The rest of the book covers the remainder of their college years and details the intervening family Christmas trips. Liam and Christian share a sofa bed – only one bed! – for the entirety of the book, which is strange but, of course, provides the opportunity for sneaky sexy times. I enjoyed the epilogue the most as it shows the progression of their relationship three years after college.
One big drawback of this book is the writing itself. The narrative doesn’t read smoothly and effortlessly. Sentences are structured awkwardly, words are repeated in sentences, the tense jumps from past to present at times, contractions aren’t used, while a thesaurus has been overused. Additionally, the dialogue is sometimes stilted and unnatural. What’s really strange are the graphics of text conversations. They’re too small to read and when I increased the font size on the page, the image size remained the same. It’s completely illegible. The only way to read it would be to screenshot the page and view it in a separate app, which is ridiculous.
The biggest problem, though, is that Liam is not a likable character. For the majority of the book, he’s childish and churlish, and his entire focus is on a vendetta against Christian. He’s a jerk to Christian, complaining about his behavior, yet acting the same way. I don’t know if I was meant to dislike Christian but I didn’t. He is cocky but not offensive and certainly more likable than Liam.
I liked the storyline and enjoyed the time spent in Rehoboth, but overall, this book didn’t work for me. I wish I had liked Liam more and found the writing style less distracting.
RATING: 
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