Review: You and Me by Tal Bauer
A single dads, friends-to-lovers, bi awakening MM Romance.
We’re a puzzle made of two pieces.
Landon Larsen is the envy of all the dads in Last Waters, Texas. He’s cool, confident, and put together. He and his son—the high school’s all-star quarterback—have the perfect father-son relationship. He’s such a Super Dad, it’s almost sickening.
I’m not cool, or confident, and my relationship with my son couldn’t be worse. He’s barely speaking to me, and a year after my wife died, we’re both clinging to the wreckage of our family.
Landon’s son and mine are best friends and—of course—Landon is the football Team Dad. And though I know nothing about football, Landon convinces me to volunteer to be closer to my son. Volunteering might give him and me a chance to rebuild what’s broken between us. Now I’m spending all my free time with the team—and with Landon—and the more we’re together, the deeper our friendship grows. My son is opening up, too, little by little. I think I’m getting him back.
There’s just one giant problem.
I’m head over heels for Landon.
I’ve never been attracted to men in my life… until him. Landon draws me in without even trying, and the harder I fight this, the deeper I fall.
Crushing on my son’s best friend’s father must be my biggest parenting failure ever, but I can’t get enough of Landon. Falling for him puts each fragile moment I’ve rebuilt with my son at risk. What would he think if he knew I craved his best friend’s dad? I’m playing with fire, but I can’t turn off these feelings Landon has unlocked inside of me.
Of course, a guy like Landon could never fall for someone like me. It’s pointless to even imagine we could be something together.
So why did I just kiss him?
***
You & Me is a single dads, friends-to-lovers, bi awakening MM romance, full of dads and their exasperating teenage sons, high school sports shenanigans, and #FoundFamily. Come for the epic love, stay for the forever feels..
I got this book on KU.
Review:
Dear Tal Bauer,
I have read a couple of your romantic suspense books and frankly had no interest in ever reading anything else, but DA commenter Eliza recommended this one and I figured why not. Overall I am happy I have read it even if books which have romance only as the primary storyline more often than not take a back seat when I am choosing the next book to read. But occasionally I am in the mood for those and this certainly was a sweetheart of the book with romantic feels “a plenty.”
I cannot say that I am very impressed by the blurb though. Oh, it is not misleading in any way, but as far as I am concerned it is way too long.
The blurb is a monologue of one of the main characters – Luke. As the blurb tells you, he and his seventeen year old son Emmett are having a relationship crisis after his wife and Emmett’s mother died a little bit over a year ago, which is completely understandable, but very sad. Emmett is on the football team and that seems to occupy all of his free time. Despite not knowing much about football, Luc decides to volunteer for the team , mostly hoping to repair the relationship with his son.
I hope I am not revealing any significant spoilers ( and he is rambling about it in the blurb anyway), But Luke also meets another dad while volunteering for the school football team, who becomes the love of his life.
I really liked the development of their relationship, which was also Luke’s coming out story and of course him and his son becoming father and son again. I was very impressed how the writer basically hooked me up on such simple plot. The men had great chemistry as friends and I enjoyed seeing them doing volunteer work for the football teams and interacting with their sons. But they also had great chemistry as two people falling in love. It was overall a very enjoyable and romantic journey.
Here is an example of their interactions:
We ordered for our kids and then bundled back into Landon’s BMW. “Crap,” I said as he passed a 7-11. “Can you swing around? I need to pick something up.” Landon parked me at the front door of the mini-mart ten seconds later. “I’ve got to get milk for Emmet,” I said, unbuckling my seat belt. “Protein shakes?” “It’s unbelievable how many of those he drinks, and how much milk we go through.” “I looked into getting a cow once. I thought it might be cheaper to build a barn in the backyard and make Bowen milk it every morning.” Landon pulled out his wallet and passed me a five. “Can you grab a gallon for Bowen, too?” “Of course. But tell me more about the cow. That’s a brilliant idea. Would it work?” “It was the cost of feed that ruined my plan. It would be like having another teenager in the house.”
“Maybe if we went halfsies? Split the milk between our boys?” My cheeks ached as I moved through the mini-mart. What was this I was feeling? I was goofing around with Landon, and it felt good. Real good. We made it back before the end of practice, in time to catch the last few minutes of the junior varsity scrimmage coached by Bowen, Emmet, and Jason. According to the scoreboard, the defense was formidable—a brick wall—and there had been no points scored. Good job, Em. Landon and I waited for Emmet and Bowen by the end zone while the players filed out. A few stayed back to ask questions, and I got to see Emmet in coach mode. He wasn’t effusive or gregarious, but he was patient. Focused. Intense. And he gave a flicker of what could have been a smile to Bowen when he clapped his friend on the back.
I also really appreciated that both men acted as adults when they may have had a conflict in the making between them. I liked that they communicated with each other and yes, talked about things rather than stop talking and start acting very angsty without convincing reasons.
I may have graded this book even higher, but I would have liked to see more positive women characters. Sorry, Annie had very few lines and Riley was not really on page in the present time and I obviously did not miss her on page (yes, I know the writer gave us a reason why she was the way she did, but it was *horrifying* for me to see how much she hurt both her husband and her son) and Bethany was okay, actually probably the most balanced supporting character, but still with very few appearances. And that’s about it.
I get that Bowen and Emmett were super busy and we don’t know anything about their sexual orientation, but no girlfriends for either of them? Obviously it is writer’s choice. At the end of the story we meet Luke’s dad, but his mom is no longer there. So basically, half a point docked for what I felt was very minimal presentation of women in the story. I am not grading a story I wanted to see, I am saying that for this reason the story on the page was lesser to me than it could have been otherwise.
Grade: B
I’m so glad to hear you liked this one as the rec got me to put it on my wishlist, too.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Sirius. I look forward to reading this.
This was a quick, fun read but oh my god the cheese factor was off the charts. I can’t imagine a real person saying most of the stuff that Luke said to Landon. Case in point: “You are the gradations of undiscovered colors in my soul. You are the inhale before my blank canvas, the moment before my pencil touches the page. You are the manifestation of my dreams. You are my intensity.”
I know this is a romance novel, but I couldn’t help the frequent eyerolls. YMMV if you can read that passage without giggling.
@SusanS: I mean yes ! But I often feel bad critiquing passages like this because who knows maybe some people talk like that to their soulmates you know ? I am not joking actually :). This is I think another spill over from being ESL speaker – what sounds funny to me I often wonder maybe native speaker would think about it completely differently . And when they don’t tried to talk like that I actually really liked their conversations which were often enough .
@Jayne: overall I did . @Kareni: Hope it works for you .
@SusanS: I was also pulled in by Eliza’s recommendation but no can do with that dialogue. That’s just so over the top it gets into parody territory. I don’t think I could keep going after reading a passage like that one. Too bad because I really love romances where the hero or heroine work on improving their relationship with their kids.
@Sirius: If it’s the kind dialogue you don’t see people saying in real life, on television or even in most other romances then it’s a fair bet that it’s off. Don’t worry about saying that even if you’re not sure, just quote and say it read as over the top to you but you’re not sure. Readers will make their own decisions based on the quoted part anyway. Just my two cents — I hope I haven’t offended you by suggesting this! It’s just that Susan’s quote is exactly the kind of information I want to know before spending my time or my money on a book.
Oh also I forgot to say. I agree the blurb goes on too long. I also wanted to ask if this book uses the gay for you trope or if the hero has been at least a little attracted to men in the past and is just in denial about it. The blurb makes it sound more like the first (but maybe I don’t understand what gay for you means, I haven’t read that much m/m romance).
@Janine: I didn’t think it was gay for you I for the most part don’t read those either . I thought it was more of hero realizing that he is attracted to men as well but just falling in love with this particular man . Also he is pretty clear on realizing that he is bisexual . Ha I have seen tirades like this in many romances actually :-). Let me be clear though it worked for me overall despite instances of language like this . I was just cautious to criticize . I think I will always have those hang ups where language is concerned .
@Sirius: Thanks, I understand.
Thanks for reviewing this, Sirius! I enjoyed reading your thoughts. Yes I agree with you that some of the dialogue is a bit cheesy. I guess I just went with it because I was so hooked by that point.
I really enjoyed this book which I read on Eliza’s recommendation. Check this past Saturday’s What Are You Reading over at Smart Bitches for my complete take on it, but I do want to point out a couple of things: Friends-to-lovers usually doesn’t work for me because on most f-t-l stories, the MCs have been friends for a long time at the start of the book and I find it hard to believe they never realized they had deeper feelings for each other. One of the things I liked about YOU AND ME is that we see the MCs meet, become friends, and then become something more. That gradual development was nice to read and certainly made the f-t-l trope work for me. The other thing I want to point out is that Bauer is completely uncritical of the Friday Night Lights ethos of Texas High School football. There’s no analysis of how the exclusive commitment to and focus on football can result in a culture of exclusion and entitlement. I recommend YOU AND ME and it’s on my favorite books of 2022 list, but be aware that football is presented in a totally positive light.
Funny I just finished reading this last night and I’d give it a B, too, but not for the reason you stated. This was an enjoyable romance but there were too many over-the-top cheesy thoughts/lines; and I couldn’t suspend the disbelief at reading the absence of ANY negative / homophobic response from fellow parents and townspeople in this small Texas town where life revolves around high school football.
I got this from KU after the comments rec but returned it after reading a few pages. The first person narrator was talking about how horrible he was at great length. I’m not saying it’s unrealistic that some people think that way, but I don’t want to read it. Add in glamorizing football (my least favorite of sports and I dislike sports) and pretending a small Texas town wouldn’t have homophobia, and I don’t think I’ll give it another try.
@Kris Bock: Sorry it did not work for you. I know very little ( almost nothing) about American football but I enjoy sports so I did not mind. It is an interesting question about homophobia in small Texan town. I guess I did not have a problem imagining that there are places that are not homophobic even in Texas? And this is not me closing my eyes, you know? I would think that there are some places even in the worst states where LGBT folks may decide to stay despite all those horrifying laws, because people are okay? maybe I am [email protected]Amy: As I said to Kris, I know very little about American football, so I did not [email protected]DiscoDollyDeb: Excellent point about seeing how these two became friends on page. And see above about me and American football. I also wonder re: Texan town what if author himself lives in such town ( I have no idea whatsoever where author lives, just speculating )
I usually enjoy his books so I’ll have to grab this one. Also there are not that many men writing m/m romances so I like to keep an eye out for them when I can, and to be honest probably give them a bit more of a pass on some writing technique. I think Hush remains my favourite of his.
@Kris Bock: I quit after the first few pages because I had the same issue with the narrator’s self-loathing. It’s believable but not a headspace I want to spend time in. I read to have fun, not to relive what it feels like to be down on myself. And you’re right, it felt like the author was dragging it out.