Review: Here Without You (One Voice #2) by Mia Kerick

With all of his scratched and dented heart, Nate DeMarco wants to be two places at once, but he’s been forced to make an unbearable choice. Having barely survived high school, Nate and his boyfriends, Casey Minton and Zander Zane, are ready to move forward. Casey and Zander have left home to attend Boston City College. Nate remains in New Hampshire to protect his volatile younger sister from their increasingly violent, alcoholic uncle. Nate suffers with anger, resentment, and loneliness as what he wants battles against what he feels he must do.

Separated, the young men fight to stay in contact. But they are faced with separate issues. Casey copes with residual fear from having been bullied in high school. Zander obsesses over the establishment of One Voice, the gay-straight alliance at Boston City College. And Nate fights for his sister’s survival. Meanwhile, the intensity of the boys’ relationship increases, both sexually and emotionally.

Nate’s effort to live two lives leads to tragedy, which threatens to blast their relationship apart before they can adjust to the changes in their lives. They must find their way back to a united path before it's too late.

Here Without You starts with Zane and Casey off to college, while Nate is still home taking care of his little sister. More than taking care of her, he's protecting her from their abusive uncle by taking all the abuse on himself.

In the first book, Us Three, Casey struggled with the intense bullying he was subjected to. Zane and Nate were there for him, to love him and support him. In Here Without You, it's Nate that needs the support of their throuple while he deals with his sister and his uncle. And by 'deals with' I mean getting the crap beat outta him. Regularly. Oh, Nate. *cries*

He's pretty much lost without his other two. But Zane and Casey are lost without him, too.

This was written in the same style as the first book. Each guy has their own POV and all three are told in a different way. It really worked for me. Not only did it give a distinctly different voice to each of them, but it made it easy to follow who I was hearing from. With three different POV's, all from guys, I would imagine that things would get a bit confusing at some point, but instead, the writing flowed naturally despite all the alternating narrators.

The whole time I kept wishing that they would do more for Nate. Why are Zane and Casey letting this happen? Why is Nate letting this happen? Why? Do something, someone! But, they're still kids. Fresh out of highschool, they're doing the best they can. Starting collge, starting an LGBTQ group and keeping their relationship together is a lot to handle without much family support. Amongst everything they were going through, they were still the loving, devoted, sweet throuple we all fell in love with in Us Three.

I loved Us Three. It was one of the best books I read last year. I wish, so hard, that I could say I loved Here Without You. I liked it, but I didn't love it. Here's why: the flowery dialogue. There was too much 'love' thrown around. In their dialogue, in their inner-dialogue, in the sex scenes... it was lovelovelove, all the time. Way too mushy for my tastes. I love me some gushy-fluff, but this felt unrealistic to me at times. If my hubby tried to talk to me that way, I'd laugh at him. Probably in his face. It wouldn't be helped. If all the lovey talk would have been cut by about 50%, I think I would have loved this. I know it's only one gripe, but it significantly lessened my enjoyment.

I still love Casey, Nate and Zane. I will absolutely read more about them. In this stage of their relationship, they were too much for me, but I adore them nonetheless.

 A copy was provided in exchange for an honest review.

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