Ami's Hoard

2.5 stars

I read two books by A.M. Arthur previously, and they didn't have a long lasting impact on me. So I figured she would be another author that, well, never going to enter my "must-read" or "watch-out" list and leave it at that. But then I saw this cover, and I loved it (I thought the cover was GORGEOUS), so I ended up giving her another try. I know, good cover can seduce me as effectively as good blurb *lol*

Meh. It ended up as another story full of clichés in this genre -- complete with a frat boy who always scores with chicks because he's in the closet, the teaching of the gay virgin (so we had numerous sex scenes of that *yawn*) homophobic important father in politic, bad foster homes experiences, the Pastor who is attempting for gay conversion, and so on and so forth. Nothing that I haven't read before, to be honest. Especially as I've read this genre for around 8 years with hundreds of M/M titles in my pocket.

Look, I don't deny that these things happen in real life, I really don't. It's an important issue and raising it in M/M romance is one way to do it as we have to keep raising awareness for it. But at the same time, I think the readers in this genre should also be the ones who are already feel high tolerance or championing for LGBTQIA rights in the first place, so sometimes for me making it a repetitive theme in romance feels like preaching to the wrong choir

Anyway, back to the story/plot ... it was another new adult love story, of falling in love within two months. Add the clichés I mentioned above. To be honest, I wasn't even liking Tate very well. To me, he felt very pushy of trying to get Jonas out of the closet. Sorry, Tate, but I always feel that it's personal when one wants come out. What Tate did to Jonas with his determination to show the great thing of 'be yourself and admit that you're gay' rubbed me the wrong way, and it was off-putting.

So again, not a winner this book, and maybe I should stick to my initial view that maybe Arthur is not an author for me.