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The Understatement Of The Year (2014)

by Sarina Bowen(Favorite Author)

3.62 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

0991068068 (ISBN13: 9780991068067)

languge

English

genre

Romance

publisher

Rennie Road Books

series

The Ivy Years

review 1: Such a pleasant feeling I'm having writing this review. Because this book was a pleasant reading experience.The thing is that I was skeptical at first, seeing that the author primarily writes M/F romance and that it's a college book. The former is because from my previous experience, some authors when cross from M/F to M/M have a tendency to portray M/M romance in an unrealistic way, at times it reads like just changing the name and the sex and where to put the thing, so I became wary of such situations. The latter is just a personal preference.But I like the blurb, kind of like the cover and was intrigued by the high rating so I just dove in. And it turned out to be a very sweet, realistic and satisfying read. Yay me.It's not groundbreaking, in the sense that all the trop... morees used in the book have been done 8 ways to sunday. You know, Graham and Rikker were childhood friends, Rik was the one who got a way. They cross path again in a college hockey team and things got heated. But the things that made it great were the author's style, characterization and plot restraint.Ms Bowen has a knack for writing realistic situations and characters, everybody feels real, with an air of normalty. Bella is a firecracker, as well as Rik's grandma. I loved how the author didn't slut shame Bella because she sleeps around with the hockey team.I love Rikker, he's just a sweet guy who stays true to himself and takes no shit from no one (I'm looking at you Big D). He's understanding and doesn't give the out-or-get-lost ultimatum when Graham hesitates to come out to the team. I had some issues with Graham at the beginning, mostly because his head is so deep inside his arse. But I warmed up to him when I got to gradually witness his personal growth from a guilt-ridden coward to a loving anchor for Rikker in times of distress. I guess I can also sympathize with initially why he felt like he has to stay away from Rikker and not deserving of his affections. But it all worked out in the end. Not a completely satisfying ending as there wasn't any epilogue, but I guess they're just in college so it made sense.Loved it. Gobbled up every word.
review 2: It's definitely better, than the 1st book of the series, but still, it's not perfect. The beginning is a bit weak, but it gets stronger and stronger as you turn the pages.I've seen that this is an award-winning series and I was wondering when exactly did the series receive this award. For the 1st book, for this 3rd book or for the whole series?What I didn't like were the repetition of certain sentiments and some of the explanations.Unnecessary repetition is just a page filler. I always hate that. Work harder on your story so you can drop these repetitions.The author explained some things about being gay that you don't need to explain to an audience who picks up a book like this.It was a rather good NA book, but it can just never live up to some of the gay YA I've read so far.Still, it's a page-turner. less

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