Title: ⟫ You Are Not Me (‘90s Coming of Age #2)
Author: ⟫ Leta Blake
Rating: ⟫ 4.5/5
Blurb: ⟫ Follow Peter into the summer following his senior year to face new beginnings, new friends, and old baggage. After a tumultuous final year of high school, Peter Mandel needs a break. It’s the summer of 1991, and his secret relationship with his ‘best friend’ Adam Algedi is put on hold as Adam goes away to Italy for the summer. On the cusp of adulthood, Peter has a couple of months to explore who he is without Adam at his side. Enter Daniel McPeak, a slightly older, out, responsible college guy with a posse of gay friends and an attraction for Peter. Drawn into the brave new world of the local gay club, Peter embarks on a whirlwind of experiences—good and bad—which culminate in a hotel room where he has to make the ultimate choice. But Adam will come back eventually, and there are promises that have to be kept. As autumn draws near and college awaits, can Peter break free of the binds of twisted first love? And what exactly is Daniel’s role in his life – a brief temptation, or something more?
Review: ⟫This part of the trilogy (I thought there were four books but there are actually three) follows Peter over the summer – Adam is away, Peter is avoiding all of the friends he has made in his final year at school and entering a whole new world. Things are changing at home as well – he learns more about his uncle, his mother becomes more than a distant shadow in the background, and Peter discovers that his feelings for Adam don’t mean that he can’t find someone else attractive. In fact, his attraction to Daniel and the person that he is, as well as finding what could well be ‘his’ people makes him look at his relationship with Adam through different eyes.
I wasn’t sure where this one was going – it was only part two so I knew that there wasn’t going to be a happy ever after. It was fascinating watching Peter begin to turn into the person he was meant to be, without all of the complications of his relationship with Adam coloring everything, even if it was still a huge influence.
I loved meeting new characters and once again, everything is through Peter’s eyes – new, precious, strange and terrifying in almost equal measure.
I felt quite a lot of frustration with the situation with Adam, especially with the idea that once he returned Peter would return to what I quickly began to see as the ‘cage’ of Adam’s love and insistence on how their relationship had to be. I wanted Peter to fight his way through but I also remember the strength of that first love and how hard you cling to it because who knows if you will ever feel anything that strongly again? If you will find someone else who makes you feel the way your first love does?
I found it extremely difficult to make myself stop and write this review before moving to the final novel – I wanted quite desperately to see what was going to happen next, if Peter had made the right choices, if things were going to work out the way I hoped that they would – but I forced myself because it only seemed fair to people who won’t have access to the third book straight away.
I would say that book two is most definitely not ‘filler’ before the main event – every chapter shows Peter's growth, or sometimes even his regressions, and the honest, awkward, painful changes he is going through. Once again, I can recommend reading this even knowing that you might have to wait for the third book – it is satisfying in and of itself, even if it’s not the end of Peter’s story.
I received an ARC from GRR.
No comments:
Post a Comment