Title and Link: A Life Without You
Author: Erica Pike
Cover Artist: Deana C. Jamroz
Publisher URL: MLR Press
Amazon Buy Link
Genre: Contemporary M/M
Length: 236 PDF pages/73K words
Rating: 3 stars out of 5

Review Summary: Several issues with the plot and characters made this book not quite up to par for me.

THE BLURB

Jesse’s like a bar of soap: the tighter Adam holds on, the faster Jesse slips away. Or that’s how it feels to Adam. It doesn’t help that Jesse has a girlfriend back home and claims to be straight, but there’s no way with all the sparks and physical intimacy flying between the two roommates.

When Adam believes he has reached his ultimate happiness, the bedroom walls come crashing down with a visit from Jesse’s girlfriend.

Now Jesse has to decide if he can come to terms with his sexuality, while Adam has to learn to accept that Jesse might never be able to crawl out of the closet.

THE REVIEW

I have read a number of books recently which had problems that prevented me from rating them as 4 stars or above. Unfortunately A Life Without You is one of those books.

Adam and Jesse ended up as roommates in college because Adam was gay (his previous roommate dumped him when he found out) and Jesse slept in the nude (his roommate didn’t like that). Jesse seemed naive and didn’t realize that Adam really was gay even though he told him, until one morning he woke up naked in Adam’s bed after a booze filled night. After that episode it was obvious that if he wasn’t gay Jesse was at least bi or curious, but it took a while for him to admit it. Jesse was engaged for 3 years to Anne and they had promised each other to remain virgins until they were married. However that promise went out the window fast when Jesse realized how hot gay sex was. :)

The MCs flip flopped throughout this book but I felt sorry for Adam because he was so in love with a man who kept ripping his heart out. He was obsessed with and addicted to Jesse. Here’s a bit of prose that illustrates this:

I want to be with him all the time. I can feel my whole soul light up whenever he walks into a room and my blood burns when he smiles at me. I’m not so sure I’ve been able to hide the obvious longing on my face whenever he catches me gazing.

It’s too bad Adam’s feelings weren’t returned since all Jesse did was use him for sex until the very end when he had an epiphany, after he found out what Anne had been up to behind his back.

There were many opportunities to turn this book around but perhaps through inexperience it just kept sinking in the mud. The romance didn’t work for me because I thought that Jesse was a cold fish when he told Adam after he used him for sex that he intended to sleep with his fiancee in their dorm room, regardless whether Adam was there or not. Talk about a kick in the balls!

What Didn’t Work For Me

Too much waffling, drama and crying. I hated how Adam let himself be used by Jesse over and over again.

I didn’t like Jesse who cheated on both his fiancee and Adam – so he was a double cheater. He didn’t want to give Adam and their hot sex up but he was determined to marry Anne and had no intention of busting that closet door wide open. He wanted Adam to be his exclusively but was not prepared to make the same promise to him.

Jesse’s fiancee was painted as a silly airhead (Adam called her Chirpy because she wouldn’t shut up) with unrealistic, old-fashioned expectations. She demanded a promise from Jesse which she broke then tried to blame others for her indiscretions.

I thought that the whole STD/syphilis infection scare was weird but I couldn’t believe that Jesse and Adam had sex without a condom before they knew that both their tests were clear. I’m not an advocate for condoms in M/M books but this was one instance where they should have been mandatory.

Despite its length, which should have provided enough time and opportunity to wrap up the story properly, I thought that the end was too abrupt and rushed.

Most books I read recently have epilogues and this one was no exception. However it seems to have been tacked on as an afterthought because there were so many  unresolved issues in the book.

The prose sometimes drove me crazy, for example if I could have a dime for every time the word “emo” was used in this book I would be rich.

What Worked

Some of the dialogue was funny (when the guys weren’t crying). :)

I love Eric, Adam’s very supportive friend, who was fun. He single-handedly saved me from throwing this book against the wall. I hope his story is next.

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Overall: This book had a lot of issues for me, not the least of which were the characterizations.

I liked Adam some of the time but he was a wimp for Jesse and let him walk all over him. As for Jesse, I didn’t like him and it wasn’t because he was a cheater. He was too conflicted for me – he didn’t know what he wanted and waffled all the time. I felt like giving him a slap on the head to wake him up.

The prose is in the present tense which took some getting used to although it did work. You should know this before you buy the book  if present tense dialogue and prose bothers you.

The dialogue was funny especially Eric’s.

If you like lots and lots of angst and a romance that seemed to go nowhere, this is the book for you, otherwise I would give it a pass.