Oh my god! Okay *exhale*
Full gamut of emotions. Haven't cried over a book in a while...now I need something funny to read...

(A couple days later): After being unable to write more than the above for a review, being so overwhelmed, I've decided to make my reply my review :-)

"I wasn't expecting anything like this. From the description, the cover and the beginning I thought that this was just going to be a light YA read. Not at all. It was really compelling in the that it examines idealism of the More...

This book was exquisite. Tim and Ben are teenagers at the same school and they begin a secret relationship. This book charts 12 years in the life of Ben with all of the highs and lows. Quite honestly, this book was an emotional roller coaster that left me completely wrung out at the end. Some readers have liked the ending, some do not. To me, the ending is not important, it was the journey and the strength and spectrum of the emotions that it invoked in me. I really loved this book.

Below is a t More...

4.6253 Stars but I'm rounding way down for the sheer fact that Tim was an asshat for most of the book.

I'm still crying. Will review when I wake up.

-EDIT-
Okay now that I've have some time to think about this book my previous rating has changed.

There were parts in this book that I hated and parts that I loved. Lets go with the former.

Things that I hated
*Tim. I understand that you had a sorry ass upbringing, but come on you knew that there was something up. If you didn't suspect anything, at least More...

I am really excited for Jay. It is like "living the dream" for all those authors out there! Self-pub, to best of 2011, to "going to be a movie". Jay is an inspiration to perseverance and true talent. I look forward to reading his work. :)

4.5 stars
This was really hard to rate. On the one hand I wanted to give it 5 stars because I really loved "part one". Ben and Tim's relationship was fun and believable and I think very well written. Then"part two"... I ended up liking Ben and Jace. I think they More...

First love. Maddening love. Everlasting love.

This is a story of first love. High school ignites sparks between Ben and Tim. Ben wanted Tim, stalked him and craved him like no other. Tim shocked Ben with returning the desire. Tim was ashamed of his feelings for Ben, he hid them and asked Ben to keep their relationship under lock and key. Ben was willing to do anything for Tim, his love for Tim burned brightly, so he complied. It didn’t take long and Tim broke under the strain of his secrets. He More...

I really struggled with how to rate this. When I give a two-star rating, it's usually because the writing was mediocre or the plot bored me. Not so with this story. I was into it. I inhaled it in anxious gulps, desperate to get to the end. I read the spoilers beforehand. I knew what was going to happen. But I HATED how it unfolded. It was the author's job to make me love Tim, and he failed.

I'm going to start the second book right now, because apparently I'm a glutton for punishment, but mostly b More...

This story completely blindsided me. I was expecting a "typical" coming of age story - about troubled high school sweethearts who end up going to college and becoming roommates. Instead I got a funny, tender and sometimes tragic love story about two boys (Ben and Tim) who meet in high school, lose each other, find others to love, experience loss and betrayal, and then somehow find their way back to each other.

Although I enjoyed reading the book, I did not understand or particularly like Ben - t More...

Ah, first love! For many people, their first love is the most memorable of all. The experiences found in that first attraction tend to color any other future relationships we they may have. This is certainly true for Ben Bentley and Tim Wyman of 'Something Like Summer' by Jay Bell.

Ben is bright, talented and loving. He strives to live life on his own terms. Ben is very kind and has a deep- seated strength of character. With the help of Allison, his best friend, and Jace, his knight-in-shining-ar More...

Firstly, books like this really make me ponder 2 things. The first being that in a previous life I must have had a first/young love that was destined to be my soul mate but we had to experience all of the angst and heartache m/c's like in this book had to endure. Secondly, I think I must have been a gay man.

There is no other way I can explain what these kinds of stories do to me. Unless of course I consider a 3rd option - which is that authors like Jay Bell are just so effing brilliant that they More...

Ben, Ben, Ben. OK, it's not a particularly intellectual way to start a book review, but I think people who have read and enjoyed this book would tell you that they understand why I began this way.

In brief, Jay Bell's novel follows Ben and his high school crush, Tim, through their high school, college, and part of their post-college lives. While Bell could have chosen to dwell entirely on Ben and Tim's high school years (there was certainly enough to fill 250+ pages with drama and hijinks), I enj More...

This book made me laugh, made me swoon, and punched me in the gut. Brilliant. Easily lost myself (as in totally forgetting about real life) while reading this and it stayed with me for quite a while after I finished it. Loved it. (original review posted in 10/2011)

**NEW-AND-SORT-OF-IMPROVED REVIEW BELOW**

Too often, romance novels get churned out where the focus is on sex, or popular tropes, and it just becomes the same tired thing, book after book. It was a fear of more of the same that caused m More...

If you haven't read the book, DO NOT READ THE SPOILERS if you want to enjoy it, I'm serious!!!!

It's difficult to rate because I have very strong feelings AGAINST one of the characters and this is really clouding my judgment.

This is the story of Ben, who falls in love for the first time with Tim. While Ben is the not-so-popular gay kid, Tim is handsome, popular and straight. Ben pursues Tim and he is able to get closer to him, so close that he prompts Tim to reconsider his sexual inclination. Tim More...

Ok, I'll get my only complaint out of the way first: the ending felt rushed. After feeling like I was actually growing up with these characters for the first 2 parts of the book, the 3rd part and the epilogue felt compressed. So much happened at the end, I just wish it had happened with more detail. But that's probably also just me wishing the book had been longer & didn't end so soon.

The book begins with Ben (as a 16 year old boy who had come out when he was 14) and his infatuation for a ne More...

I really enjoyed this book. It brought me back to the past when the smallest romantic inklings could spin my world. It also reminded me of a person in those years for whom I felt quite passionate and for whom I left a stable relationship. Still have dreams about the former, not about the latter. Of course, it all blew up in my face.

Enough about me and back to the book. Another aspect I liked about this story were the plot turns. Though I didn't see them all coming, they were still very believea More...

Brining smiles, frowns, tuts, and tears.
This book takes you on an emotional roller coaster ride.

A great read.

Constantly keeping you yelling out suggestions on what the main character should do. Only to find out that the decision they make really does reflect their personality.

The characters feel so real, that you'd think they actually exist, and this book is a biography.

Two things I didn't like were how the story suddenly jumps ahead in time, sometimes within the same chapter. It is not too bad, More...

This is some awesome writing considering the character of Ben drives me crazy. A Junior in High School and while on summer break, he develops a huge crush on the new guy on campus, Tim. Tim is everything that Ben is not! Ben is out, Tim closeted, Ben is middle class, Tim, rich....but mainly, Ben is always trying to remain true to himself. Tim is always hiding, except for when he is with Ben or wanting something from him. But for all of Tims faults, Ben does bring out the best in him, which makes More...

It's such a nice thing to find a good author who truly cares for the characters he writes about. This one took me back to my HS days and those wild hormone ridden emotive times.

Without giving too much away it is a gay love story that takes a decade to tell and has more bumps, highs and lows than most amusement parks.

While I was sad at their break up in HS, it served its purpose that each never really forgot about the other and that over time they find their way back (though not without some ve More...

M/M romance ที่ประทับใจสุด ๆ ในตอนแรกที่ตัดสินใจซื้อไม่ได้คาดหวังมากเพราะราคาถูกแสนถูกแถมยังได้รับเลือกจาก Amazon ให้เป็น Best Gay Book of 2011 ก็เลยคิดว่าลองอ่านสนุก ๆ เพราะอยากได้มุมมองของวัยรุ่นเกย์จากที่เคยอ่านเกย์ผู้ใหญ่มาบ้างแล้ว

Ben เป็นวัยรุ่นที่เปิดเผยว่าตัวเองเป็นเกย์ ถูกล้อเลียนจากเพื่อนในโรงเรียนแต่โชคดีที่ยังมีครอบครัวที่เข้าใจและยอมรับตัวตนของเขา

Tim หล่อ รวย เพอร์เฟคในสายตาของ Ben ย้ายมาจากต่างเมืองและอยู่ไม่ไกลจากบ้านของ Ben และแล้วอุบัติเหตุที่เกิดขึ้นอย่างไม่ตั้งใจนักก็อำนวยให้ More...

I didn't really have a chance to thumb through reviews before picking this on my Kindle. I had twelve days off from work and wanted to jump into a book head first. I find myself buried with work and day to day distractions brought on my relationship and hobbies. Jay Bell did it; did exactly what I wanted. I found myself hating the characters through the first three chapters but soon, much like the review of the reviews, ex post facto, I found myself reflecting on my own life experiences. At 33, More...

For someone who isn't really a fan of "romance" novels, I enjoyed this a lot.

I immediately liked Ben as I felt Bell created a very realistic young gay guy. He wasn't overly flamboyant and over the top with his sexuality, nor did he shy away when it came to standing up for himself and I feel that quite often tv shows and films portray young gay people as being only one or the other. As for Tim, I found him to be quite a cocky, typical teenage boy, but no less likable.

At times, I felt like their More...

I really wanted to love this book but I just couldn't do it. I didnt care for either Ben or Tim after a certain point because they became such awful people to each other in ways that didnt make sense. And that was a recurring issue in the book--these characters doing things that dont add up. Ben just joyriding in Tim's car without even a thought, Tim suddenly wanting to have gay sex, just the dynamic between the two of them never made sense or was rootable.

What sad is when the flash forward happ More...

This is the first exclusively M/M novel I've ever read. Overall, I was pleased.

There were some things that bothered me, though. One was the spelling mistakes. There weren't that many compared to some of the other books I've read recently, but there were enough for it to be worth mentioning. The one example I can think of right now is decent instead of descent.

Another thing that bothered me is a major spoiler. (view spoiler)[Jace didn't have an aneurysm. Well, he did, but it was more than that. He had an aneur (hide spoiler)] More...

Something Like Summer

Author: Jay Bell
A Book Review


Again, from the books we like shelf at the Surrey Public Library. I'm going to have to complain next time I'm there.

What a perfect world Jay Bell writes, Houston, Austin, Galveston. Of all places, who would have known, Texas. I was surprised it so liberal, considering the topic. Young homosexual lustful love.

Where else could you write a love story but Texas just for the shock value. A young teenage boy falls in love with another young teenage boy More...

Far too depressing for me--I didn’t see the happy ending as happy

Warning: This review might contain what some people consider SPOILERS.

Rating: 6/10

PROS:
- The descriptions of public high school are accurate in a way that both amused me and made me faintly nauseous a few times. The tentative nature of the boys’ initial exploration is also dead-on: equal parts touching, amusing, and awkward.
- Bell’s writing is smooth and easy to follow: his dialogue seems realistic, his sentences are simple but n More...

I cried for three hours straight, after reading this book (I finished the book in 1:11 am and cried till 4:00 am, I have NEVER cried for a book before, so thanks for that.) The next three days I was walking around like a zombie, and even now I can't think of Paris, Bentley's, Neon Blue Shoes and butterflies, without felling like i'm going to burst out in tears. I loved and hated this book, it was so well written, I could see everything and felt like I was the character's (throughout the whole bo More...