Reviewed by Larissa
TITLE: Oblivious
SERIES: IOU, Book 3
AUTHOR: Leslie McAdam
PUBLISHER: Self-published
LENGTH: 198 pages
RELEASE DATE: June 15, 2023
BLURB:
My hot best friend has no idea what he’s doing to me.
He sends me naughty texts at the most inappropriate times. He lets me fall asleep on top of him when we watch movies. And his protective side comes out if I dance too close to anyone at our favorite club.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but those are things a boyfriend does. Except August isn’t my boyfriend, he’s my bestfriend, and those lines are drawn in permanent marker. The one time we tried to cross the boundary between friends and lovers, it failed so spectacularly that we never did it again. So … “friends” is good enough. That’s what I tell myself. Because at least I have him in my life. Without him, I’d be lost.
But after we’re dared to kiss, and that kiss reshapes reality, we agree to be friends who do things with each other. Nakey things.
That makes my life so much better. And so much worse. After all, August doesn’t want to settle down, and he never wants to get married. While I do.
Most importantly, no matter how our relationship changes, he can’t find out I’m desperately in love with him.
Oblivious is a sweet and steamy contemporary m/m romance about best friends who don’t know they’re already dating. Noah and August are always touching, finish each other’s sentences, and bristle whenever the other gets within six feet of a date, but they can’t see what’s crystal clear to everyone else. Oblivious features badly timed schmexy texts, a hot kiss that rocks two men’s universes, and (unofficially, but likely) the highest number of heartfelt marriage proposals in a romance novel ever.
REVIEW:
Leslie McAdam continues her highly enjoyable IOU M/M romance series with Oblivious, a joyful story that just makes you feel happy. Noah and August are oblivious best friends who are in love, and everyone knows they are in love … except them. They’ve been in each other’s pockets since they were nine years old. Two decades later, they are dancing around their obvious feelings for each other. How two smart men can be so stupidly blind to their own relationship is a wonder, but that’s what makes this story so lovely.
Oblivious isn’t any ordinary friends-to-lovers story. Trite tropey-ness is an impossibility in McAdam’s capable hands. She knows how to tell a story, and here she roots it in the deep abiding love and devotion Noah and August have for each other. We are along for the journey as they discover that their lifelong relationship isn’t just about friendship and love. It’s all about how they fit like two halves of a whole. It just took a minute for them to get with the program that they are partners in all of the platonic and non-platonic ways.
Oblivious is a low-angst confection of a story. It’s plenty sweet, but balanced out by some spice, along with humor and plenty of found family feels. I adored watching Noah and August realize they had fallen for each other so very long ago. All the proposals are icing on the cake … 💖💑💕
RATING: 
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