Just a heads-up: I received a copy of this book in exchange for a typically blunt Fountain Pen Diva review. With that said, on with the show, lol.
I have not been a fan of the New Adult genre. To be perfectly blunt, outside of a few notable exceptions, the entire genre has been a complete and utter waste of trees. If anything, it comes off as having turned the clock back on feminism at least twenty years. Between the slut shaming, near glorification of rape culture, so-called "bad boys" who any self respecting woman would taze rather than date, virginity worshipping, failing the Bechtel test on a huge scale, and even more unforgivable, the utter lack of diverse characters, I've literally given this genre the old heave-ho.
So imagine my shock when the twin sister duo of G.L. Tomas sent me an unproofed copy of their latest work. I was prepared not to like it just because it was NA, but ended up reading the entire thing in a day. Why? Because it's messy and it's real and more importantly, the cast of characters are DIVERSE. Say what you will, but we're headed into 2016 and it is unacceptable that the romance genre as a whole isn't doing a better job of inclusion.
Even better the heroine of the story, Naima, is a dark skinned, natural haired young woman from Nigeria. Now, those who follow my reviews on Amazon and on Goodreads know that I am unapologetic about calling out colorism fail, especially in my beloved Interracial Romance genre. In fact, this year has been rather sparse in regards to IR because I am way past done with the seeming preference for light skin/long straight hair courtesy of a Native American or Caucasian ancestor/and green eyes Black heroine, as if a man of another race could never fall in love with a beautiful dark woman. As this genre is mainly penned by Black authors, they should know better and more importantly, DO better. Look at the way actress Lupita Nyong'o has been embraced, especially by dark-skinned Black women who seldom see themselves positively represented. Bottom line, you are either part of the solution or contributing to the problem.
So here I read about Naima who's not only dark-skinned with natural hair showcased both in an Afro and flat-ironed, but a smart, self aware heroine who owns her sexuality in a refreshing way. She's also older than the typical NA heroine.
Then. There's. Timothy. Sexy Portuguese hottie who's saved from hipsterdom by a taste for American Horror Story and Supernatural. He sees Naima and he's determined to get to know her better. There's just one huge problem. Timothy, known as Timbaland by his coworkers (sexy man works at a killer bookstore and cafe. Can we say score!), has a girlfriend in Texas. Having been in a long distance relationship myself, I was pretty amazed how the authors captured the conflicting emotions that such relationships are fraught with.
Of course, two people highly attracted to each other and who spend most of their time together, well, something is bound to happen and oh boy does it ever. Hence the messy part. On the one hand, I wanted to smack them both - Naima for not respecting another woman's boundaries and Timothy for starting something he had no right to until he took care of business. Be that as it may, the heart (and yes the libido) wants what it wants. And these two had chemistry both in and out of the bedroom.
Now, there are two reasons I didn't award Same Page five stars, and one is just my personal quirk. I'm not a fan of hip hop urban slang because there's so much of it saturating the media. Having said that, the way Timothy and Naima relate to each other felt natural and real. My other reason is that dratted cliffhanger ending. Thanks to the seeming proliferation of 50 page stories being peddled at up to three bucks a pop, I'm not a fan of that marketing ploy. Still, Same Page is a darn good, mature read that for us non-fans of New Adult, is a much needed breath of "thank you goddess!"