Sex, Love, and Videogames

Title: Sex, Love, and Videogames
Author: CJane Elliott
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Release Date: August 21, 2015
Genre(s): Contemporary, New Adult
Page Count: 264
Reviewed by: Jewel
Heat Level: 1 flames out of 5
Rating: 2 stars out of 5
Blurb:

Shy guy Jed Carter has always felt invisible next to his charismatic older brother, Kent. Kent’s master plan for Jed is simple: University of Virginia, fraternity, business, sports, and ladies’ man. None of it is Jed, except for playing on the rugby team, which he joins in defiance of soccer-loving Kent. Jed comes out in his sophomore year and starts seeing Pete, an attractive junior, who uses him for sex and videogames. Jed wants more—in life and in love—and starts making his own plans. First on the list: getting to know Charlie, the handsome guy working at the local videogame arcade.

Charlie Ambrose has always felt like an oddball, and not just for his tendency to stutter. Being gay sets him apart from his African-American community, and as a “townie,” he doesn’t fit in with the college crowd. Charlie’s inspiration is his cousin, Morocco, who’s transgender and doesn’t give a fig about fitting in. Art is Charlie’s passion, and when a local videogame designer discovers him, Charlie’s living a dream. The only thing he’s missing is love. But the last person Charlie expects to find it with is a cute, white U.Va. rugby player named Jed.

You win some, you lose some and, unfortunately, just didn’t work for me.

The story takes place over about 3 years from the time that Jeb and Charlie both graduate high school. Jeb is from Centreville, VA (where I’ve lived for the past 15 years, incidentally) and Charlie is from Charlottesville. They only meet twice in the first 60% of the book and by the time they actually got together, at about 63%, I just didn’t care anymore.

Both MC’s also had on page “relationships” with other people before they got together, which I didn’t really want to experience it. It would have been ok for it to be in a prologue of some sort, just to show where they were in their lives, but it was the first 60% of the book, so that turned me off, greatly. All I got out of reading it was that both Jeb and Charlie are doormats, willing to settle for scraps or setting the bar really low in order to get laid, when neither of them needed to be that way.

I liked the supporting characters, well enough, especially Charlie’s transgender cousin Morocco, but I need more than a like for the supporting characters to like the story. The format was just too slow for me. Your results may vary. I’d never read anything from this author, before, so maybe this is her normal format, or maybe not. Either way, I’m not sure I’ll try another.

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