Reviewed by Kat
TITLE: If You Want Me Close
AUTHOR: Skye Kilaen
PUBLISHER: Self Published
LENGTH: 276 Pages
RELEASE DATE: May 10, 2022
BLURB:
Falling in love with your best friend is wonderful… until tragedy means fighting for the romance and the friendship.
Bisexual event coordinator Simon Novotny thrives on connection. He cherishes his large, queer-friendly family and his friends—especially his cute, brilliant work bestie, gay IT geek Ziah Holdaway.
It’s taken forever for Simon to to coax Ziah out of his shell. Time and again people have let him down, especially those who should have loved him unconditionally. But Simon would do anything for Ziah: text him jokes when he’s down, bring him homemade lunches, change his tire in the rain. Heck, if Ziah needs a kidney, Simon’s got two.
Minor crush? Maybe, but Simon’s not a make-the-first-move kind of guy. So when an unplanned hookup with Ziah proves their chemistry is off the charts, it also shakes Simon to his core. Because for Ziah, it’s not casual, it’s love.
Before Simon can fully process his feelings, a life-altering tragedy upends Ziah’s world. Simon throws himself into helping and also rallies his family. But for Ziah, family means rejection, and Simon’s uber-helpful clan sets off major alarm bells.
Can they find a middle path through the storm, or will this crisis cost them both their romance and their friendship?
A high-heat contemporary M/M romance novel with a guaranteed HEA.
Tropes: friends to lovers, hurt-comfort, grief, nerds in love, bisexual disaster, single parenting.
Detailed content warnings will be available in the book’s front matter and on the author’s website.
REVIEW:
A new-to-me author.
Simon Novotny struggles daily with life. Particularly struggles to keep his neurotransmitters to fire correctly with his meds. But, even then, life can be extremely challenging. Thankfully he has his best friends and coworkers Ziah Holdaway and Mina on his side and has his back. He enjoys his work and is very good at it even when life isn’t going so well. When his best friend finally lays his cards on the table Simon is a bit scared but being with Ziah is everything. But when tragedy strikes can a struggling Simon and a down-on-himself Ziah make things work?
I know personally how hard the Mormon church is on its beliefs on same sex coupling. I have no doubt that a traditional Utah Mormon family not only discarded Ziah like trash when his truth emerged but did a real number on his psyche. What the end result was was that they mentally tortured and beat that boy down so badly he had no real faith in himself or his worthiness no matter how hard he or his friends had tried. He was a sinner going to hell and there was no way around that in his mind. I did love that Simon, Mina and Simon’s parents and sister never gave up and learned to tread softer. Ziah would always feel that betrayal and abandonment forever. They just needed to go slowly and build a different type of trust. Because that sweet young man deserved to be loved and protected but would always fight his personal demons of unworthiness.
Simon’s illness took center stage a lot. I know it was depression that was because of an imbalance with his neurotransmitters and some of the meds he took were counterproductive to living his life fully out there. It is a blessing that modern medicine has come so far to help find a way out of the darkness but the mind is ever progressing so it would always be a when not an if darkness would pull someone as deeply affected as Simon back down that hole again. I loved that Ziah would always be there for him and it wasn’t a deterrent for him. He loved Simon regardless.
This book was pretty dark and angst for me. First with the whole Simon being clueless about Ziah’s true feelings for him. Secondly, the mental depression hanging over them all the time. And lastly how Carolyn’s death nearly crushed Ziah. I know that trust of family was a huge issue for Ziah but, at some point, I felt like he needed to at least accept that not all families were like what he grew up with. I know his life was happy and loving until he came out but he really was more damaged than Simon in many ways. And, for a boy that gave up everything in his life for his sexuality I couldn’t ever see him and Carolyn just hooking up. He had so many hang ups with “if you are bisexual why wouldn’t you take the easier route” and he said he was gay not bisexual so I didn’t get the fooling around with a woman part at all.
All in all, I found this to be a bit more depressing love story. There was just so much darkness and struggles. Yes, I got my needed HEA, but it was a long, difficult journey to get there.
RATING: 
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