Just Like That

CW: anxiety and on page panic attacks, depression, talk of suicidal ideation, bullying, loss of spouse and parent in the past.
There are other content warnings which are mentioned in the beginning of the book.

I know I don't read enough ownvoices gay romance stories even though I like the genre a lot, but I'm always looking out for more. And Cole McCade is definitely one author I look forward to even though I did abandon his Criminal Intentions aerial after reading nine or ten episodes because it was too dark for my taste. But this is a new romance series and I was so excited when I got the ARC.

While this series is definitely not dark, it's also not like the romcoms I'm used to reading. Both the characters of Fox and Summer are the products of their pasts and traumas, and their depictions felt so real and visceral. Summer suffers from anxiety and panic attacks but he is also brave enough to give voice to his desires when challenged and I admired him so much for being compassionate and relentlessly trying to get out of his comfort zone.

Fox on the other hand has closed himself off for years because he couldn't process the grief of losing his wife. He is a professor everyone is quite scared of because he is a very tough taskmaster, but underneath he is so soft and just needs someone to show him that deserves to live and love again.

Cole has a way with words and the writing really is exquisite at places, tugging at your heartstrings so much that you can feel all the pain and the joy that the characters are experiencing. Even though I did feel that the falling in love part happened a bit fast, it was still very believable and I was rooting for them all the way. I wasn't sure I would like the setting of the boarding school before I started reading the book, and I'm still not entirely impressed with it because the concept of rich kids being bullies and traumatizing each other is not my kind of narrative, but I liked the direction the author took that particular subplot in. There were not many other side characters except Summer's mom who only made a couple of appearances, but was delightful.

Overall, this was a very emotional love story with great depth in the characters and I thoroughly loved my reading experience. And I'm quite excited to see where the series goes next.