Kelsey Kingsley - The Life We Have

After the untimely death of his single mother, Greyson found himself orphaned at fifteen. That is, until the discovery of his father, Sebastian - a world renown drummer in a famous rock band.
Overnight, Greyson's world had been turned upside down, taking him from rags to riches. And now, six years later, Greyson's only goal is to follow in his dad's footsteps.
Except, while his father is a reformed ladies' man, Greyson is gay. And that's a secret he's not ready to let go of.
But he never planned on meeting Zach.
How can he keep the man he loves without disappointing the man he admires?

Comment: As planned, I did read this book which is the follow-up to the one I got to read last month and which was the first by the author I had tried. I actually got interested in this one but since I could get both, I did. I ended up not finding the other one as amazing as I expected by the blurb but I didn't lose hope this one would be more appealing and I'm glad it was.

In this story we follow a grown up Greyson, son to the protagonist of the previous book, as he follows his father's footsteps into a music career. Greyson is bent on trying and starting from the bottom, learning and getting experience by auditioning on his own, even though his father could help in finding a better band.

When he is hired by a band, his new life begins but not everything is as easy as it would seem. Besides, there's Zach - his drum technician, a slightly older guy he can't help but be attracted to although he isn't out and certain about how to share that part of himself with others, his father he idolizes included. But as time gets by and he becomes friend with Zach their connection becomes stronger, as does the challenge of understanding who he is and what kind of person he wants to be in the music world...

I did, in fact, have a better time reading this book than the previous one. The writing style is still the same and I can confess at times it felt like things were a little out of sync, as it happened in the other book. What I mean is, often a situation would be described a certain way but it felt superficial. 

Then we would get other scenes and those have quite an emotional impact. I can't really explain properly, but I got the feeling the writing isn't very well structured. 

The story is told, the scenes happen but there isn't a visible cohesion between the several situations... it makes the story feel stilted and weaker than what it could be.

A big part of this story is developed with the world of music and the easy access to additions people can find there as well as the coming out of Greyson.

There are also other things happening but they take a more secondary place and, closer to the end, we also have a bit more focus on Zach's family life and so on.

What endeared this story to me the most is how Greyson struggled to come out but how positive the experience still was because he had people surrounding him who welcomed his words and who he is.

There are obviously less positive aspects, namely related to the backstage addictions running free... it's quite annoying to think people feel they had to give in to peer pressure and that addiction exists at all... if only people could just say no!

Something that caught my attention, this must be the author's first m/m story? She didn't develop the intimacy/sex scenes as much as she did with the previous book, which was a lot more detailed in how the main couple suited each other sexually... It's true that, for me at least, it's not as if this story needed explicit sex scenes but I have to wonder why we didn't have a few more obvious situations of their relationship.

The end had some complicated issues, I think the author wanted to add too many things but I still had a good time and liked this book. I was rooting for Greyson, I liked how he still maintained a good relationship with those around him, his father especially... some things, on the overall writing, felt forced, staged, not as smoothly as they could have been but... 

I'm still glad Greyson found his HEA so I can more easily overcome the things I liked less, unlike with the other book, where the more negative details to me didn't make me enjoy the story as much.

Grade: 7/10

Kelsey Kingsley - The Life We Wanted

Sebastian Moore thought he had it all.
A drumming gig with one of the world’s biggest up-and-coming stars. The looks and charm to get him any woman he laid his eyes on. All the friends he could ever ask for.
But something was always missing.
That is, until he receives a letter, telling him that he’s a father to a fifteen-year-old boy.
Now, with the addition of his son, a love interest he never expected, and a whole new set of responsibilities, Sebastian finds himself happier than he’s ever been.
But old habits die hard, and when life finally gives him everything he wanted, he’ll have to find a way to keep his past from ruining the present.

Comment: What made me interested in this book was actually the sequel. I saw it recommended somewhere, it would feature a young man fearing how to tell his rock star father he was gay and I thought it would be an emotional book to read. Then I saw the father had a book too, this one, and the blurb made it look very appealing so I decided to start with this, to read in order.

In this book we meet Tabitha, a career woman who is raising her nephew since his mother has died. However, Greyson is now a teenager and she feels she needs help which means that when she finds out letters her late sister kept, where the identity of the father is revealed, Tabitha decides to contact him and let him know he has a son.

She is surprised by how quickly he replies and shows up to know Greyson and even more so to see how good looking he is. She decides to not let that get in the way since she wants to keep things easy for her nephew but, of course, they are more alike than what it first seems.

Sebastian is a drummer in a rock band, he is an easy, laid-back guy and not that angry to discover he's a father. He also feels like he wants to peel of Tabitha's layers, she intrigues him like no other but it seems she hold on to so many rules.

Will these two find more in common than what they think?

Well, what can I say about this novel... it was certainly not the amazingly heartbreaking story I envisioned nor the cute and warm romantic comedy I hoped for instead, once the first pages broke me out of my expectations.

By the cover, I thought this would be something sweet, a little simple in execution but with enough emotional punch to sustain it.

I could see the tone of the book was less intense than what I imagined but more than Sebastian's personality (lighter than anticipated too), it was the superficial way things were dealt with that made me bring the grade down.

I mean, there are important subjects in the works here: Greyson lost his mother, his mother's behavior and how it affected her demise and those around her, how he would connect with an unknown father until that moment, Tabitha's desire to provide and to be proper but clashing with her carefree youth...

However, despite these things being addressed somehow, I found the overall style of the story to be too simple, the feel of everything was based on an execution that wasn't really complex. For me this means the book had several boring parts and the characters were not developed as deeply as they could have. Therefore, they reached their goals but I failed to have any connection with them.

I think the relationship between Tabitha and Sebastian takes too much of the plot. It's obvious they will end up together and it was good how we got to learn small things about them and how they suit one another through this and that. I just think more focus should be given to Sebastian and Greyson and Sebastian's relationship with Tabitha should feel more natural or more romantic. It actually started to feel like a task to be solved, there was even another love interest for Tabitha which was totally unnecessary and the plot was set on something really thin.

I'd rather have the story to be only about relationships because the secondary stuff was irrelevant, except perhaps, Sebastian's family: they were all great.

For a teenager who lost his mother and finds out he has an idol of his for a father, Greyson seemed too bland. The way he evolves and interacts with the others has its moments but he does feel very basic and not that deep as a character. I'm a little worried to see how he goes from what we see of him in the end of the book (for all purposes, happy) to how he is described in the blurb of his book. I'm not talking about his person, but his attitude towards life. Let's see...

I also would have liked more scenes of him and his father. At some point everything felt so easy...as if the author wanted this done, the words to sound well but the emotion wasn't always there.

I'm still going to read Greyson's story but now I'll have lower expectations regarding the type of execution I might find.

This story had great ingredients to work out and unlike other readers, I didn't dislike Tabitha nor her issues, but the way she and Sebastian so quickly hook up, how he so quickly likes her, how quickly she goes from wanting to dislike him to have sex with him, how they both don't sit and talk to Greyson, how things are simply expected to work between them... I just think the book turned out to be boring. It could be more touching or funnier, depending on the author's choices, but it just went nowhere for me.

Grade: 5/10