Beautifully Fractured by Michele Lenard (Front Range University #1)

TITLE: ⟫ Beautifully Fractured

AUTHOR: ⟫ Michele Lenard

SERIES: ⟫ Front Range University #1

RATING: ⟫ 5/5

BLURB: ⟫ Ever have someone get you so well it’s like looking in a mirror?

Cruz

Starting over is not what I had planned.

Those stories about magically becoming best friends with the person assigned to live with you… Yeah, that won’t be me. I already have a best friend. Even if I wanted a new one, Liam wouldn’t be it. He’s permanently grouchy, carrying a negative energy I don’t need since I’m finally in a good place. But I’ve never been good at ignoring when people need help, so I paste on a smile and play nice.

Predictably, Liam isn’t much of a talker, but after an unexpected accident he needs my help in other ways. Ways that offer me answers about myself. Ways that raise new questions about the football dreams I’ve been chasing since I was a kid. Ways that make me relive the past I want to ignore.

To say I’m confused is an understatement, but there’s one thing I know for certain…Liam is either the key to one door or the bolt that could prevent another from ever opening. And I have to choose which I want him to be.

Liam

Starting over is exactly what I need.

I can’t get any more invisible than I’ve been for the past few years, and I figure rooming with another person means at least one human on the planet can’t ignore me. Unfortunately, that human is Adonis personified, and not gay, so it’s looking like my invisibility streak might continue.

Then I suffer a minor accident, and Cruz’s hero complex comes out in full force. I should be grateful to have someone to open my door and carry my books, but when you pair his selfless personality with that body… My mind starts to blur the roommate line, which makes his blur the line of not being gay.

My heart is already battered, and I doubt it can take rejection from the one person who broke down all the walls I’d built around it. That doesn’t mean I won’t try to give it to him anyway.

**Beautifully Fractured is a high-heat MM romance with medium angst that features a grumpy/sunshine relationship, forced proximity, hurt/comfort situations and a bi-awakening. This is book one in a series of interconnected standalones. Though the main characters are athletes, this is not a sports romance. Rather, it's a romance that happens to feature people who play sports.

REVIEW: ⟫ This story was beautiful in so many different ways and I don’t think any review I write can do it justice. This book was my ‘treat’ – I’d been looking forward to it for some time, and I decided to settle down with a drink, a cat and a heated blanket. And oh my, did this book deliver.

Cruz is like the world’s happiest golden retriever of a person and it would be so easy to dismiss him as such a simple character. But as the story continues, we learn about the things that Cruz struggles with, the fears he’s hiding, the confusion about who he is and what he is – it’s handled in such a nuanced fashion, I was really impressed. And I loved him so much as a character – so matter of fact about things that would send most people into a tailspin, with a solidness to him that I appreciated more and more the further I read.

Liam broke my heart – over and over – but I was also incredibly impressed with how strong a character he was. With his history – with his family – it would have made the most sense in the world for him to shut down completely, allow himself to be utterly bitter and beyond even the grumpy trope. But instead, Liam allowed Cruz to see the person he was beneath the crusty exterior; made friends with people who by rights should have terrified him based on his history; opened himself to new friendships despite how badly friends had burned him in the past; and ultimately move past his family and the aftermath of the tragedy.

I absolutely adored the relationship between these two – I gotchu was a catchphrase that was made for the two of them, and they demonstrated it so many times over and over with how much grace they gave each other; how supportive they were; how much they understood the other person. I feel like I’m just spewing out words of praise without any substance but I don’t want to risk spoilers – this is a book that deserves people going into it without knowing what’s coming because then they get to enjoy as it all unfolds without warning, to have those ‘awwww’ moments as well as the ‘oh wow’ ones.

I think it’s really easy to tell that I truly adored this book – all I can say is that it’s one of the best ones of the year so far for me. A well deserved 5/5. I received an ARC from GRR.