Guest Reviewed by Morgan
Title: The One Who Saves Me
Author: Cardeno C.
Series: Home #6
Heroes: Andrew Thompson/Caleb Lakes
Genre: MM Contemporary
Length: 212 Pages
Publisher: The Romance Authors
Release Date: February 7, 2015 (2nd Ed.)
Available at: Amazon and Barnes & Noble
Add it to your shelf: Goodreads
Blurb: At fourteen, Andrew Thompson and Caleb Lakes become best friends. As the years pass, they stand by each other through family trauma, school, and the start of their careers. They share their first sexual experiences, learning and experimenting, and they talk each other through countless dates and breakups.
Decades of trust and loyalty build a deep and abiding friendship, one that surpasses any relationship in their lives. But when the parameters of their unique friendship change, neither man knows how to break out of their established roles to build something new. After all, boyfriends come and go, but best friends are forever.
The One Who Saves Me is set in the Home series where the books are linked by theme or world. They are independent and can be read in any order.
Review: Andrew and Caleb are best friends from early on who begin to explore their sexuality with one another as teenagers. When they split up for college, they continue their relationship as best friends who hook up if neither is in a relationship.
Years pass and neither manages to find a permanent relationship that sticks. Caleb never really even tries, but Andrew yearns for a forever-man. However, Andrew is the most screwed up when it comes to his expectations of forever because his parent’s relationship was so dysfunctional.
Eventually, Andrew settles down in an “open” relationship with a very self-destructive man who ends up dying from AIDS. Though Andrew is safe from the disease, it hits him hard that he, as a doctor, couldn’t save his live-in-lover from the disease.
Crushed, Andrew moves back home and Caleb moves in with him to help him heal.
At this point, both men are dancing around their previous “friends with benefits” relationship and something about the situation keeps them from starting that up again.
After a lot of misunderstanding and angst, they finally admit how important they are to one another and start a real relationship together.
**
This was my least favorite of the series.
I just couldn’t get into it. I think that the fact that they kept coming back to each other then seeing other men felt like a betrayal over and over. My sentimental heart couldn’t take it.
There were also so many side issues that didn’t get explored fully enough for my taste. Caleb’s body issues. Andrew’s self-mutilation issues. The whole AIDS thing. Andrew’s commitment issues. Caleb’s willingness to put aside everything for Andrew without taking for himself…
I felt that Caleb was mostly true-blue throughout the entire book and just willing to accept Andrew’s crumbs. Even the new Epilogue Ending didn’t satisfy, but instead, served to emphasize how far they still needed to grow to be in a healthy relationship.
It had a much darker, less sentimental feel than the other books in the series and as a result felt out of place to me.
That being said, I still enjoyed reading it, just not quite so much as the others.
Overall Impression: It was good
*I received a copy of this book from the author in return for a fair and honest review.*
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