Between Sinners and Saints

4.5This is the story of two people who've been ill-served by those meant to love & protect them and how they manage to make a place for themselves. Jaime deals with monstrous trauma from his childhood and his mother's indifference. Levi suffers from the reverse, a family that is overly involved in his life and what makes it worse, IMO, is that their love is conditional. Fate lets their paths cross and it's a beautiful thing.I'm surprised at how much I ended up liking this and I chalk that up to [a:Marie Sexton 3292500 Marie Sexton https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1263092521p2/3292500.jpg] excellent storytelling and [a:John Solo 7935034 John Solo https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png]'s top-notch narration. I say this because the author seems to in some way validate Levi's family's attitude to his homosexuality. I know it's all predicated on their religion and it makes sense for them but it also read to me as if Levi too accepted their view point but was just unwilling to change his “lifestyle”. It was okay for the Binders (Levi's family) to continue to view homosexuality as a sin that they're going to tolerate in their son because it's serving a greater good. All is accepted because ultimately they love their son. It's utterly realistic of how interpersonal relationships work but I wanted at least one scene of someone calling them out on their BS. Religious beliefs as an excuse to condemn behavior doesn't hold water for me. However if you can ignore the above I can wholly recommend this. It's a beautiful story of hurt & comfort, emotional healing, and likely more authentic to how people actually live than the regular romances, M/M or M/F, with rosy HEA. I also liked how Jaime's situation was handled, nothing was swept under the rug, his gravitation to ALL that Levi represents clear and logical. Levi is literally the best boyfriend ever.