Jagged Edge

2.5 for Iggy & Teddy's narrationIf you have any kind of attachment to truth or reality this might not work for you. I don't know how I ended up with this book, probably lured by [a:Iggy Toma 13543759 Iggy Toma https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] and [a:Teddy Hamilton 15007880 Teddy Hamilton https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/m_50x66-82093808bca726cb3249a493fbd3bd0f.png] as narrators. It's a sad, sad, sad, day when neither of them could make me like this, but it's entirely my fault. This is just not a type of story that I enjoy, perhaps because some of themes explored are familiar to me in RL, and I feel like they're trivialized or sugar coated to fit in the romance box. That's not necessary. Romance is expansive, and can honestly deal with all sorts of subjects.This story is part of a m/f series, which I haven't, nor will, read. Many names from those books are mentioned, but you can read this as a stand-alone, with zero problem. I did. My problem wasn't following the story, it was everything else.Jason Vega is somewhere over 21, but under 30. He is and has been (apparently forever) a prostitute, currently under the control of an omniscient & evil pimp, who, because he's obsessed with him, regularly has him beat-up, (ruing the merchandise makes zero sense), and plied with drugs. Jason is perpetually cold, hungry, and bruised. Added to Jason's orbit of obsessed fans is Raine Storm (YES. THAT'S HIS NAME).At the beginning of the book Raine is just turning 21, but everything about him speaks of a different age and probably gender. And I don't think it's because he's one of those “wise beyond his years” characters, but rather because, IMO, the author doesn't know or care how a 21 y.o., son of grifters, raised rough, brother of a tattooist, gay man would/should behave, think, or speak. According the story Raine, and his older brother, Ocean, (YES. THAT'S HIS NAME) were raised scrounging for cat food in a trailer park. That kind of rough. I believed ZERO of this. Raine has been fixated in a love/hate thing with Jason for a few years. Circumstances finally bring them together, and Raine gets to be a White Knight etc. etc. etc. I read all sorts of claptrap and have little difficulty enjoying most of it. However, and perhaps I'm in error, I felt like the use of prostitution merely served as window dressing, or grit, being as the larger world of the series involves an MC, and tattoo artists, who live outside the picket fence grid. The lives of prostitutes, male or female, those who've had to resort to this line of work early in life, because they have no ‘family', addiction, and homelessness, or a combination thereof, is no walk in the park, and the glossing over of the real devastation to mind and body just makes me a bit crazy. The only real note Jason doesn't get hard with clients soon gets cured by that old standard, Magic-D. Raine & Jason fall into a relationship of sorts, that's always fraught by misunderstandings, because they never talk, and Raine lusting after Jason even when what he clearly needs is a warm bed & food, or acting like 30 y.o. ready to set up house and live a HEA, when he's a 21 y.o. wading into his first relationship. To top it off the villains were ludicrous, the climax was from a bad B-movie, with a version of the Russian mafia lifted from some tween's Tumblr account, and cameo appearances by characters from other books in the series, with names like Riot, which will pretty much guarantee I won't be reading any further into the series. Thanks to Iggy & Teddy for seeing me through. As always YMMV.