I absolutely loved this LGBTQ romance.

Such a great book with a solid storyline and great characters.

I eagerly look forward to reading more from this author.

A definite recommend

I requested this only because I liked the cover! I did not even read what it's about and hence, I did not really know what to expect. I did enjoy this book quite a lot but didn't really come to love it. I liked how the characters were written but at the same time I felt the pacing could have been better!

A quick thank you to NetGalley and Sunbury Press for an early review copy in return for an honest review. My review is posted on Amazon Kindle only and went up on 15 January 2022.

Honestly this was more of a 2.5 star read. I struggled with this one and it took me a while to get through it. The first half of the book was not good, I found it cheesy with all the modern pop culture references and the baseball related chapter headings made me cringe. Terms like the untouchables sounded kind of silly and I did not enjoy the main characters choice of British detective speech.

To be fair, Evan did eventually grow on me and I really liked his love interest but that didn’t start happening until halfway through the book. The best parts of this story were definitely the hard hitting and emotional topics that Evan had to deal with. Coming to terms with his sexuality, the difficult relationship with his father and the unfortunate homophobia in his school and church. These issues are very important topics and I believe it is a good thing for the kids to read and learn about.

There were certain incidents that could have had a better resolution and Evan could have demonstrated standing up for ones self in those situations, but I can see how his reactions were realistic to kids his age. It was great to see those around him like Big Momma and Angelica call him out on his bad behaviour. It was even more of a delight to see Big Mommas relationship with Evan on page, hilarious and sweet.

My biggest issue with this book however was the mystery plot, it wasn’t engaging. I was not compelled to keep reading by the premise itself, I had to push myself to finish this book. Not only was the mystery predictable and the villain obvious, but the actual revelation of why the lightning bat had been taken was anticlimactic. The ending of the case was disappointing, not even the development of Evans budding relationship with his love interest was enough to save this one.

This book was very cute. Evan was a great main character who was flawed but someone you couldn't help root for, he did take his friends for granted at the start in order to be friends with the popular kids which I didn't like but there was a lot of character growth with him and he ended up apologising to his friends at the end which I loved as I often find in books where the main characters mess up and never apologise everyone around them just forgives them. The mystery itself I did find slightly boring however I enjoyed where it went and how it ended. I also really loved the LGBTQ+ rep in this and the talks about it.