Someone to Kiss

The search for own-voices m/m romance continues, and this one was... okay. I feel like two stars is maybe a bit harsh, but I didn't feel like rounding up to three.* I've yet to rate an own-voices m/m romance more than three stars, and I'm starting to wonder if perhaps they're just not for me. I thought I was a big ol' gummi bear, but perhaps I'm more cynical than I thought I was because I found myself rolling my eyes rather than getting all soft and giggly over them. But I wanna get soft and giggly! My main issues with this one were the pacing of the story and the relationship itself. For example, the only sex scene arrives right at the end, and even though they were together for four months and getting serious before the Conflict That Derails The Relationship™ happens, it's written like they've not had sex before and that seemed weird to me. Side note: referring to someone's butthole as their “opening” during a sex scene is perhaps the most aggressively unsexy thing I ever read on a page, imho. This story employed the use of flashbacks to fill in the narrative, and I'm usually here for non-linear storytelling, but these didn't add much to the story for me. By the time they're brought in, the drama of the relationship had already happened, and I already wasn't buying it, so they were too little too late at that point and just felt repetitive. The flashbacks only cover their meet-cute and first two dates, which did not do enough to convey to me why their four months together were important enough for the conflict of the story to have any weight or stakes. Like, okay, y'all met and it was cute, but it's not that deep, so...?Part of the problem for me was that instead of “show don't tell”, the characters are constantly just telling us how they are feeling during their pov sections instead of allowing us to experience how they feel by the way they act and the things they do. In the absence of any other real character development, this just served to hold the characters at arms' length. For example, Carter is constantly remarking about how scatterbrained he is, but we never really see that in any meaningful sense. He just forgets his phone a couple of times (turns out this was foreshadowing I guess, but even then, it felt more of a conceit of the plot than any real personality trait). Instead, it just comes across as a bit “I'm not like other gays, tee hee giggles.” But, to be fair, we do get to see that Carter is kind and nurturing, if a bit needy, and has some vague family issues, so that's something. On the other hand, Dane is just a workaholic who loves Carter and wears cowboy boots. We're not really given much else to understand why Carter loves Dane except that he saw him get a boner that one time. The denouement went for a comedy of errors kind of situation that was a little too convenient and unbelievable to feel earned, but I did like the epilogue as we finally get to see Dane showing his love instead of just telling us. And, I thought it was a nice touch that it was set in a real restaurant in Greenville. That was cute.It honestly wasn't that bad, but because it was just so beige to me overall, the negatives stood out more prominently in my mind. I wonder if the problem was how short it was; if the story were longer and we could explore their relationship a bit more, maybe it would have felt less forced, and the conflict might've had more stakes. But also, what story was there I found a bit boring, so don't know that having to read more of it would have kept me engaged. The writing itself was very readable, and that was probably why I stuck with it and didn't DNF. I'd be open to reading more from this author if the synopsis piqued my interest. Like I said, maybe I'm trying to make fetch happen, and m/m romance isn't for me? I just couldn't suspend my disbelief or my cynicism enough to let it be what it is and go along with it for some light enjoyment. Maybe this review says more about how dead inside I am than the quality of the story... lolBut! The optimist in me persists; I will keep looking for an only-voices adult m/m romance that gets more than three stars! Recommendations welcome!* I looked at some of the other m/m romances I've read and bumped it back to 2 stars. I had a lot of the same issues with this one as I had with [b:A Heart Back Home 55355363 A Heart Back Home (Heart, Home, Family #1) Andrew Grey https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1600293298l/55355363.SY75.jpg 86328245], and it wasn't as easy and pleasant as [b:Melting 54341604 Melting (Otter Bay #1) Sean Ashcroft https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1593551576l/54341604.SY75.jpg 84798237]. Melting was definitely better than the other two, but not a four-star read. I feel like the five-star scale isn't robust enough to rate things accurately and with nuance, but I don't wanna do half or decimal stars since GoodReads doesn't support it. Idk, the world is ending it doesn't matter. lol