From GoodReads:
A book that I was still thinking about long after I finished.
A book about families, brothers, hidden sexuality, biphobia, friendship
The younger teen brother coming out as (unsurprisingly) gay. Older brother who has always internally struggled with his sexuality, coming out as bi (and stealing younger brothers thunder!). Parents ,who are not perfect, but are actually fairly cool and the type that many a gay man would wish for. Add in a pretty girlfriend and some laddish friends and we have the ingredients for a rollercoaster of a ride.
I had a few small issues with labels and stereotypes - but overall sharp, witty and thought provoking.

An enjoyable rom-com that has Jake, our main protagonist, coming to terms with his bisexuality as he nears his 30th birthday. With a large cast of characters it's all, well, 'fabulous'. Everyone has plenty money (the parents live in a six bedroom house), everyone has a job or - in the case of Jake's younger teenage brother, Trick - have 'fabulous' interests and make internet videos. Poor and struggling, these people ain't. And that just made it all a little too frothy for me: trips to Paris and Barcelona, expensive London nightclubs, and so on. And it all, of course, ends up swimmingly as everyone finds their own path and everyone makes up and everything is....

OK, it's an engaging, diverting read, funny at times. Enjoyable, but forgettable. 3 stars.

(With thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC of this title.)

If the sign of a good book is that you just can’t stop thinking about it for days after, then The Magnificent Sons is definitely one. It’s been about a week since I finished it and still every now and then I find myself thinking. Honestly, it’s all a bit inconvenient.

The story here follows Jake, the oldest of three siblings. When Jake’s younger brother, Trick, comes out as gay, it induces Jake to start thinking about his own bisexuality, something he’s been repressing since he first realised he liked boys.

Probably the reason I liked this book so much was Jake. You know those characters you just click with from page one? That was how it went here. And he was a complex character too. As much as you felt for him with the whole repressing his bisexuality and expressing internalised homophobia, he did do things wrong (like kissing his girlfriend’s brother’s boyfriend). But the narrative was never like, this is the protagonist we can’t confront him about it. He was confronted about it and challenged over it and he grew as a person throughout.

I also loved how this book is not a romance, it’s more like a coming-of-age story except the main character is nearing their 30s. But, in all honesty, I think books like this are so necessary. It’s all well and good having your gay characters know they’re gay from a young age and not hiding it, but how many people really know themselves that well as a kid and how many people aren’t affected by society and peers when it comes to sexuality. I don’t know, I just really appreciated a different perspective on it all.

Central to this story too is a family. It’s not a dysfunctional family by any means, but it’s one that Jake feels he doesn’t fit into and part of his journey involves articulating that and finding his place in it. And, as much as Trick irritated me throughout the book, I loved them all. And I loved how they came together at the end.

Really, if I had any complaints at all, it’s just this: I wished some of the biphobia was called out more, particularly Trick’s, Margo’s and Helena’s (those are the two times it stuck out to me as being not well confronted). On the whole the book was good about it. It’s just there were a couple of incidences where I wanted it to be done more. Especially because, in Trick’s case, his friends aren’t cishet and were very good at calling out other bits of bigotry. Just not this one. But like I said, on the whole it was good about it.

At the end, though, I really enjoyed this book, and it’s one I will be picking up a physical copy of as soon as possible, just for a reread (or three).

The Magnificent Sons is a funny, compelling novel about a man dealing with his relationship with his family and coming out as bisexual. Jake is twenty-nine, in a relationship with a nice woman, and feels completely different to the rest of his loud, in your face family. When his younger brother Trick comes out as gay on his seventeenth birthday, Jake realises his own response might be to do with his own repressed self. People already think they know Jake, though, so he finds himself navigating old and new relationships, as his family and friends work out their own lives too.

I knew of Justin Myers from his commentaries on The Guardian's Blind Date feature on his blog The Guyliner, and he combines the sharp wit of those posts with the underlying sweetness of wanting people to have a nice date in The Magnificent Sons. This isn't a lingering musing on emotions or even really a brooding look at coming out (regardless of how much people see Jake as brooding), but a funny, sharp book that focuses on character relationships and the quirks and differences that people have. Other characters' points of view are brought in at times to highlight where Jake is holding prejudices and assumptions about not only their lives, but how they see him, and the novel in general is not only about Jake, though focused on him. The characters, style, and a few unfinished storylines left me wishing the book didn't end, but it was also well-pitched to show that events were still a work in progress and that things wouldn't be easy for Jake, Trick, or anyone else just because some things were more resolved.

This is a fun book that is great to sit down and devour in a short space of time, but it is also a great look at how people of different ages deal with sexuality and relationships, how assumptions don't help people get along or support each other, and how people can react to bisexuality. There's also hope that the novel will help people in similar situations to Jake to think about their own lives and what they want, because coming to terms with sexuality isn't something restricted to a particular age group.

The Magnificent Sons is Justin Myers second novel and I've found his writing style to be raw, honest, he's not afraid to show the storyline's true colours but I've also found his writing to be endearing and filled with likeable characters. Characters that are blessed with everyday situations and have to face many hurdles and this is what real life is all about. Facing our fears, our emotions and our thoughts.

This is the story of two brothers who on the outside appear very different but were it counts, on the inside, they are the same. They want to be loved, understood and feel welcomed for who they are. This story is about Jake and Trick but it could be about any number of siblings all over the world.

Jake the eldest of the brothers has always shied away from drama, conflict or someone making a spectacle of themselves so when his younger brother Trick comes out on his 17th birthday Jake dismisses it as Trick's show, again! The whole family has known about Trick's sexuality for a long time but when Jakes starts to question his own his family are dumbfounded and Jake questions whether it's easier to just 'be normal'.

This was a compelling read of a young man questioning his feelings but it's also a family learning to listen, to understand, to accept and to talk to each other again.

I really enjoyed The Last Romeo, so lept at the chance to read The Magnificent Sons. I think there's a lack of really strongly, believably British, contemporary LGBT books, and I found both this and The Last Romeo really reflective of the world as I know it.

I wasn't disappointed - this story of two brothers, 10 years or so apart, and their respective journeys towards self-discovery is well written and pacey. If anything, I wish it had been a bit longer!

I related strongly to Jake's story in particular, and the struggle of coming out in your late twenties, with all the baggage that comes with that - that feeling that maybe you've not been honest, why didn't you tell them sooner etc. I think the book handles that delicately, whilst accepting that Jake is only human, and so he does make mistakes during the process that hurt others - his brother, Trick, and ex-girlfriend Amelia, mostly. You feel for Jake and his own insecurities and issues, but also acknowledge he isn't being as sensitive as maybe he should be.

Trick is a blast, and is believable when he could've become a caricature. The emotional highs and lows that come of his relationship with his brother really humanised him.

There were some things I felt weren't tied up that well - Jake's friendship with Callum, is an example - but overall it felt like a well polished second novel.

Thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for the ARC!

The Magnificent Sons is a coming out story, but with added layers and twists. Jake D’Arcy, regarded as the boring one by his boisterous family, has never really fitted in. Despite a lifelong lurking suspicion that he might not be entirely heterosexual, Jake has firmly repressed it, acquiring a long term girlfriend and a group of straight mates. His flamboyant young brother Trick (Patrick) is the gay one in the family, coming out on his seventeenth birthday to the surprise of literally nobody.

While everybody’s cool with Trick’s sexuality, nobody has ever considered that Jake might not be 100% straight, and his dawning acceptance - and announcement - of his bisexuality is a shock to those around him.

Jake’s parents’ struggles with him being bisexual feel real, though Amelia’s asking him if that meant he fancied everybody didn’t necessarily seem like something she would say. Though maybe it’s forgivable in the circumstances. Justin Myers does a really good job of rendering Jake’s feelings of slight disconnection from both the straight and gay worlds, and other people’s discriminatory or simply uncomprehending attitudes - still a thing, even in these days of pansexuality and sexual fluidity. Likewise, the effects on other people - notably Jake’s girlfriend and brother- are not minimised. The tense relationship between the two brothers is a key element of the plot.

It’s often hilariously well-observed (colleague Harry’s predilection for compound-noun insults was spot on) and the characters are really believable, I found I could visualise them all so clearly - Jake’s family, friends, and the people he meets on his journey of self discovery... (which sounds far more dull and worthy than it actually is). Trick and his pals Kia and Hot Will are particularly memorable.

A really enjoyable read - thanks!

“The MTZ Christmas party was the only thing Jake never had to fight for budget to pay for – no way would the directors miss out on a chance to throw back Pouilly-Fumé, dance the Macarena, and give lower-ranked female colleagues a few horror stories to scare their daughters stiff with in years to come.”

Most of you know Justin as the Guyliner, a brilliantly witty and insightful columnist, but he’s also a damn fine novelist as this hugely ambitious second book demonstrates. In The Last Romeo, Justin was on familiar territory following a guy who throws himself into online dating, blogging each encounter anonymously as the mysterious Romeo.

That debut captured and showcased all of Justin’s razor-sharp wit and observations. And there’s still much of that in The Magnificent Sons. However, the plot here is far more complex, following two brothers – Jake and Patrick – as they follow very different paths to coming out (to themselves and everyone else) as bisexual and gay, respectively.

There’s a lot on the table here, from Patrick’s defiant and transparent approach as a YouTuber and influencer, posting frequently on his struggles, contrasting beautifully with Jake’s more introverted character. Jake is the older brother, entangled in a relationship with his girlfriend that he maintains because he is too scared to face up to his need to express himself and to face the fallout that will inevitably come; whereas Trick (as his younger brother prefers to be called) wears his heart on his sleeve, trying to roll with the cuts and bruises that come from such openness.

There’s a wonderful sense of different generational attitudes and experiences here – Jake and Trick may be brothers but there’s over ten years difference between them – and the way friends and family react is a telling demonstration of the work society still has to do.

But it’s the personal journeys that impress here. Yes, Justin is typically brilliant at social observations on queer communities and the tricky, complex layers of privilege and discrimination that exist, but it’s because he gets to the heart and soul of his two main characters that give this novel the heart and soul it needs to succeed. Both Jake and Trick are complex characters and he resists giving either of them neat endings, but he does show how there are many different ways to finding your path. Beautifully done.

I really enjoyed The Last Romeo when I read it a couple of years ago so I was quite excited to get my hands on this book. Excited and a little anxious that it wouldn't live up to my quite high expectations. Well, I had nothing to fear. I started it yesterday fearing that I'd had to put it down to go out - Friday night you know - but then I got the "can't make it sorry" text and had to pretend to be a tad miffed when inside I was turning cartwheels cos I could just get back to reading it! A situation that, in itself, is not wholly removed from the spirit of some of the events contained herein. Anyway, I digress... So Jake is 29 and still working at his life. He's got the job, the home, the friends, the girlfriend, but something isn't quite right. Ok so his family are a bit chalk to his cheese but that's not what's wrong. Not all of it anyway. And then his brother Trick announces that he's gay - not really a shock to be honest - and is pretty much revered for this. Jake starts to question his own sexuality, reminiscing scenes from his past, but he has a girlfriend, he can't be gay. He must be Bi. But girlfriend Amelia has just moved in with him. Oh my, what a tangled web...
Ironically enough I read this book at the same time as a well loved national icon announced his own sexuality to the world, having denied his true feelings for a considerable time. Lying to himself as much as others, you could say fooling himself, living how he thought others (and society) wanted (expected) him to, and I guess that Jake is feeling similar when we first meet him. But how do you change at the ripe old age of 29, when everyone has expectations on you, when it will turn your world (and others') upside down? What do you even do with these new feelings now you are embracing them?
This is Jake's story. But it is so much more than that. It's Amelia's and Trick's, and Jake's family's and a whole host of other people's. Jake's news is like the old stone in the pond, ripples from which spread in ever increasing circles which eventually cover the whole of the pond's surface.
Oh my goodness, I've made the book sound quite heavy... well, there's no getting away from the fact that a book of this genre is likely to be quite an emotional ride, both for the characters and the reader but, and this is important, the delivery of the story, the wonderful humour contained herein, keeps it from getting too dark and depressing. There's is light at the end of most tunnels, it's just being able to walk through to get to it that's key. It's enlightening, uplifting, at times a bit cringy, but it all comes across as real. Characters and story alike.
It's a book I feel privileged to have read, one that I thoroughly enjoyed - if reading about another's pain and anguish can be enjoyable, but you get what I mean - and one that will stay with me a while longer. Yes, OK, it gets a bit .... at the end (no spoilers) but I like endings like that when they fit the book, as this does here.
My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

I really loved this book, it drew me in immediately. I felt the hurt Jake and Trick went through so strongly, the character's attributes and actions (both bad and good) were so real and well drawn, it was just so human.
I cheered for so many of the characters, and loved that Amelia had her own growth, wasn't just thrown away as the wronged woman.
This book was so engrossing I had to force myself to put it away so I could shower and go to work!

Witty and emotional tale of two brothers, their family and friends. It’s light, whilst also touching on big complex issues of identity and cross generational culture divides. I also recognised myself in the character of Jake far more than I would have like to have, which was unexpected. Myers writes evocatively of the first explorations, the confusion of feeling, but also neatly contrasts this with the perspective of those around and those hurt in the fall out of major life realisations.
For regular Guyliner readers there are a few greatest hits deftly woven into the narrative, which is like a knowing wee smile to the reader.
There are some who will find this too light - it’s not a literary exploration of identity - but they forget just how hard it can be to create believable characters that you care about, get into the big issues and still keep it light and scattered with pop culture. I look forward to Myers’ next book!

I really enjoyed The Last Romeo, but The Magnificent Sons absolutely swept that away for me. The characters felt so real and made me care about their lives and their loves, and the situations were so relatable. Plus, it means a lot to see a bisexual character going out and having a romantic life with people of both genders. I loved it!