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iam's review
5.0
This was great!
Content warnings include: alcoholism, violence, past and present domestic violence and sexual abuse and rape of a side character (mostly off page but there are some graphic descriptions), side character attempts suicide, homophobia, internalized biphobia; mentions of drug addiction.
Most content warnings can also be found in the book's blurb!
As heavy as these content warnings sound.... I was surprised to find that Out of the Shade is not a dark book at all. In fact it was warm and really funny and witty at parts which I totally didn't expect.
I also didn't expect to like the Kensington boys - Jesse's group of friends who all grew up in the same town, a tightly knit and almost exclusive group that does everything together and is defined by their love for and loyalty to each other.
While the parents, wives and kids of these men are also very much involved, I didn't expect to like the dynamics going on. It's not exactly a small town environment, but similar, with hypermasculinity and focus on traditions very prevalent. I fully expected to be made very uncomfortable by the men's interactions - so I was completely floored when I wasn't, and instead genuinely loved the dynamics of the group.
Yeah, there are a few silly jokes about being manly men, and there's different friendships within the group, but the love and care they all have for each other was palpable at all times. And as I mentioned before, while the core group are the men, their singular families are very much involved as well.
I also liked the journey of Chuck and Jesse's relationship. They are both great characters (fleshed out and likeable, like the rest of the big cast) and I liked that the romance wasn't a straightforward line from meeting -> attraction -> dating -> minor conflict -> happily ever after. The way it was felt natural for the characters and fit their storylines very well, as well as driving home that a romantic partner isn't the solution to any and all problems.
Despite me saying it's not a dark book, there are quite a few heavy topics handled in it. Both the main characters and the side ones go and/or have gone through quite a bit.
Both the abuse and the queerphobia was handled very well, even if it was heartbreaking at times.
Especially the way Jesse views his own sexuality got to me, and it very well got the point across that representation and support matters.
There's a bit of a weight loss/getting into shape plotline going on, but it's rather minor.
A minor plotline I liked was Jesse getting more in touch with his heritage: he's biracial, with a white mother and a east polynesian dad from New Zealand.
In the Author's Note the author talks about her own experiences of growing up in such a tightly knit environment and how Out of the Shade is a very personal book, which is very apparent while reading. I'm glad she chose to publish it because it's an important, touching story on top of being a great, well written book.
I was provided with an ARC and reviewed honestly and voluntarily.
Content warnings include: alcoholism, violence, past and present domestic violence and sexual abuse and rape of a side character (mostly off page but there are some graphic descriptions), side character attempts suicide, homophobia, internalized biphobia; mentions of drug addiction.
Most content warnings can also be found in the book's blurb!
As heavy as these content warnings sound.... I was surprised to find that Out of the Shade is not a dark book at all. In fact it was warm and really funny and witty at parts which I totally didn't expect.
I also didn't expect to like the Kensington boys - Jesse's group of friends who all grew up in the same town, a tightly knit and almost exclusive group that does everything together and is defined by their love for and loyalty to each other.
While the parents, wives and kids of these men are also very much involved, I didn't expect to like the dynamics going on. It's not exactly a small town environment, but similar, with hypermasculinity and focus on traditions very prevalent. I fully expected to be made very uncomfortable by the men's interactions - so I was completely floored when I wasn't, and instead genuinely loved the dynamics of the group.
Yeah, there are a few silly jokes about being manly men, and there's different friendships within the group, but the love and care they all have for each other was palpable at all times. And as I mentioned before, while the core group are the men, their singular families are very much involved as well.
I also liked the journey of Chuck and Jesse's relationship. They are both great characters (fleshed out and likeable, like the rest of the big cast) and I liked that the romance wasn't a straightforward line from meeting -> attraction -> dating -> minor conflict -> happily ever after. The way it was felt natural for the characters and fit their storylines very well, as well as driving home that a romantic partner isn't the solution to any and all problems.
Despite me saying it's not a dark book, there are quite a few heavy topics handled in it. Both the main characters and the side ones go and/or have gone through quite a bit.
Both the abuse and the queerphobia was handled very well, even if it was heartbreaking at times.
Especially the way Jesse views his own sexuality got to me, and it very well got the point across that representation and support matters.
There's a bit of a weight loss/getting into shape plotline going on, but it's rather minor.
A minor plotline I liked was Jesse getting more in touch with his heritage: he's biracial, with a white mother and a east polynesian dad from New Zealand.
In the Author's Note the author talks about her own experiences of growing up in such a tightly knit environment and how Out of the Shade is a very personal book, which is very apparent while reading. I'm glad she chose to publish it because it's an important, touching story on top of being a great, well written book.
I was provided with an ARC and reviewed honestly and voluntarily.
loishojmark's review
4.0
It was a slow start for me. The writing was a bit stilted in the beginning, and the über-masculinity and dude-speak made it difficult to engage in the characters. I know there's a reason why they speak and act that way, but still. But as more and more romantic and angsty feelings reared their heads, the book caught me on.
It was my first book by this author, but I'll definitely give McAuley another go.
It was my first book by this author, but I'll definitely give McAuley another go.
the_novel_approach's review
4.0
Out of the Shade is a coming out story, but that’s the book in its most basic context. While this is no doubt a significant factor in its plot and characterizations, and the story’s focal point, it’s also about so much more than a man who’s hiding a part of himself away from the only people in the world who matter to him. There are layers and components to Jesse Solomona that Out of the Shade addresses alongside his being uncomfortable with and afraid to admit his bisexuality. Jesse is a giant of a man, can be gentle when he needs to be, is a beast on the athletic field, but he’s also a raging alcoholic and a belligerent drunk who has some deep-seated and unresolved problems beyond the secret that he sleeps with both women and men. He carries around massive amounts of guilt and anger over his sister Emily’s past and current abuses, which eventually comes to a head…and nearly ruins his life in the process. He is tighter than tight with a group of friends who feel like a family, who are his family. And very much like blood family, those friendships have strangled and suffocated his ability to be who he is. These are the people Jesse is utterly terrified of losing, and so he remains solidly in the closet.
That Jesse is catnip to the new guy in town, Chuck Dunn, says quite a bit about the kind of men Chuck is attracted to.
S.A. McAuley lays bare a man, as well as a story, that is a multitude of degrees shy of a light and fluffy romance. The weight of the stress Jesse carries, and the absolute terror of being thought of as anything but straight, casts a dark shadow over a relationship that could have been so, so good for him, but that had trouble written all over it from the very start. Jesse and Chuck have some fantastic chemistry, and their friendship is as easy-going as their intimacy is complicated. They go through some incredible highs together that make the lows that much more painful to witness, and they crash and burn in a spectacular fashion. The one thing that is clear as crystal, however, is that the crash needed to happen, and I applaud McAuley for not skirting the harder truths or taking the easy way out of her commitment to telling an honest story just to tick off a few boxes in the romance category. The preeminent factor in this relationship, in the end, is in the recovery that had to happen before Jesse and Chuck could begin building something together. Chuck himself is not without his own backstory full of emotional baggage, either, and his attraction to Jesse was both history repeating itself and a model of how to self-sabotage one’s own happiness. They needed to fail for their own self-care and preservation, and before a future together could be anything more than a want.
There is an integral piece to Jesse’s recovery, what brought Chuck to Kensington in the first place, which is uplifting and adds even more emotional heft to the story. It is a catalyst for Jesse’s courage and honesty, to finally prove to Chuck that he was ready to be present in his life and in their relationship, and for the Warriors kids, a community boxing club for at-risk youth, to embrace a hurting friend. There was a lot of empathy and emotion to delve into there, and its symmetry worked to bring everything together beautifully. This was not a filler side-story to escalate or feed the drama; this was an integral thread to enhance the sense of unity and community and to elevate the sense of found family and the importance of those connections and support systems.
Out of the Shade may be a coming out story, but it’s also a celebration of recovery and life and family and friendships and love. I braced myself through the bad times and celebrated the book through the good, and on to Jesse and Chuck’s HEA. This is a great novel to dig into if you’re a reader who gets into deeply flawed characters with issues complicated by lies—the lies we tell ourselves, the lies we tell each other, and the lies we tell by omission.
That Jesse is catnip to the new guy in town, Chuck Dunn, says quite a bit about the kind of men Chuck is attracted to.
S.A. McAuley lays bare a man, as well as a story, that is a multitude of degrees shy of a light and fluffy romance. The weight of the stress Jesse carries, and the absolute terror of being thought of as anything but straight, casts a dark shadow over a relationship that could have been so, so good for him, but that had trouble written all over it from the very start. Jesse and Chuck have some fantastic chemistry, and their friendship is as easy-going as their intimacy is complicated. They go through some incredible highs together that make the lows that much more painful to witness, and they crash and burn in a spectacular fashion. The one thing that is clear as crystal, however, is that the crash needed to happen, and I applaud McAuley for not skirting the harder truths or taking the easy way out of her commitment to telling an honest story just to tick off a few boxes in the romance category. The preeminent factor in this relationship, in the end, is in the recovery that had to happen before Jesse and Chuck could begin building something together. Chuck himself is not without his own backstory full of emotional baggage, either, and his attraction to Jesse was both history repeating itself and a model of how to self-sabotage one’s own happiness. They needed to fail for their own self-care and preservation, and before a future together could be anything more than a want.
There is an integral piece to Jesse’s recovery, what brought Chuck to Kensington in the first place, which is uplifting and adds even more emotional heft to the story. It is a catalyst for Jesse’s courage and honesty, to finally prove to Chuck that he was ready to be present in his life and in their relationship, and for the Warriors kids, a community boxing club for at-risk youth, to embrace a hurting friend. There was a lot of empathy and emotion to delve into there, and its symmetry worked to bring everything together beautifully. This was not a filler side-story to escalate or feed the drama; this was an integral thread to enhance the sense of unity and community and to elevate the sense of found family and the importance of those connections and support systems.
Out of the Shade may be a coming out story, but it’s also a celebration of recovery and life and family and friendships and love. I braced myself through the bad times and celebrated the book through the good, and on to Jesse and Chuck’s HEA. This is a great novel to dig into if you’re a reader who gets into deeply flawed characters with issues complicated by lies—the lies we tell ourselves, the lies we tell each other, and the lies we tell by omission.
haletostilinski1's review
4.0
I fell for this author when I read her Borders War series, starting with [b:One Breath, One Bullet|36128116|One Breath, One Bullet (The Borders War, #1)|S.A. McAuley|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1503761426s/36128116.jpg|23853178]. I felt that that series was severely underappreciated and I think I've been waiting for this author to come out with another book for a long time, to not only see what she could do with something completely different, but also to just get more S.A. McAuley.
While this wasn't a complete win for me, it was still really really good, in my opinion. It's always tough to read stories where one of the MC's is extremely closeted - or closeted at all, but especially when it is extreme - so going into this I knew it wouldn't be an easy read.
Sometimes, for some people, even if they grow up in a good household, and never had anything particularly homophobic thrown at them specifically, they still can't handle being not straight, and it seems like they never will come out - and for some people, they never do, or do it very late in life - and Jesse is that person.
His sister had an abusive father - physically and sexually - and then she married an abusive man - but while that definitely affects Jesse because he loves his sister and wants her to be happy, it isn't happen to Jesse, so it isn't like this trauma is happening to him. But other than that, he has two parents who love him - his father is different from his sister's father - and while they're somewhat distant with him, that doesn't mean they're bad parents.
Jesse has grown up with the Kensington boys, a group of fairly exclusionary guys who take pride in being a group of friends from Kensington. I don't know if Jesse grew up with these guys being particularly homophobic, but I bet there was a casual homophobia among some of them, nothing too overt, but homophobic all the same, even though there's only one guy in the group who really has a problem with gay guys - like when Chuck shows up, no one seems to care except for Ryan.
So, for all intents and purposes, it's a wonder why Jesse is so afraid, so much so that he's 33 years old, and still closeted, still hiding that he sleeps with men as well as women - and he is bisexual, not gay, but he's still scared about anyone finding out he likes men as well - and is so messed up by his attraction to men that he turned to the bottle to hide his anxiety and fear and everything over it, and he becomes an alcoholic, really.
But sometimes it doesn't have to be so horrible for someone to start drinking or self-destructing, sometimes it's their own fucked up thoughts, without any real outside interference, that does it, and that's what happens with Jesse.
I did love how this book took Jesse's journey. He hits rock bottom around 40, 45% and it's only up from there, really. He gets almost black out drunk - which of course, Chuck has never seen how he acts when he gets that drunk - and to make matters worse, he lets his problems with Chuck and himself manifest badly enough that he beats up Emily's abusive ex almost to death. Not that anyone would miss the guy, but that's not the point. Jesse truly reaches rock bottom.
As for the romance - I do have to say that some of my problem with this was the lack of connection between Chuck and Jesse at first. It was there, but...it wasn't enough of a connection for me. So much so that I was wondering why these men were falling for each other. We didn't get to see enough, in my opinion. The sex also felt rushed and that detracted from my enjoyment too. I was expecting more detailed and passionate sex, if not emotional yet.
Now, that connection did grow more as the book went on and these two got to a much better place, and I did come to really love them together (although the sex was still rushed, which annoyed me. I wanted the making love scenes, okay? Not enough explicitness or passion in the sex scenes for me - they even felt rushed over at times, and it was a bummer for me, especially when I know this author can write incredibly good sex scenes.) and enjoy them together. But at first I just wasn't really feeling it, though.
Of course, just as I was starting to feel it between them, everything went to shit. In the end the separation was necessary, but sure was hard to read. Also,
So overall, I really enjoyed this, especially the second half. I saw other reviews stating how the first half wasn't the most fun to read, and I agree. But also we have to read the first half to get that second half. We have to earn that happiness just like Jesse does. We have to see him reach rock bottom in order to see him reach true happiness. We had to see just how bad things were and how bad they got to see Jesse finally pull his head of out his ass and get his life together so he could be happy, whether or not Chuck was in his life (although Chuck is a definite bonus ;) )
So overall, I really enjoyed this and I hope to get more stories from this author in the future, I feel she is so underrated. And while this wasn't perfect for me, overall it was really good and deserving of a read (and yes, just stick with it through the first half to get to the awesome second half.)
Two thumbs up from me!
While this wasn't a complete win for me, it was still really really good, in my opinion. It's always tough to read stories where one of the MC's is extremely closeted - or closeted at all, but especially when it is extreme - so going into this I knew it wouldn't be an easy read.
Sometimes, for some people, even if they grow up in a good household, and never had anything particularly homophobic thrown at them specifically, they still can't handle being not straight, and it seems like they never will come out - and for some people, they never do, or do it very late in life - and Jesse is that person.
His sister had an abusive father - physically and sexually - and then she married an abusive man - but while that definitely affects Jesse because he loves his sister and wants her to be happy, it isn't happen to Jesse, so it isn't like this trauma is happening to him. But other than that, he has two parents who love him - his father is different from his sister's father - and while they're somewhat distant with him, that doesn't mean they're bad parents.
Jesse has grown up with the Kensington boys, a group of fairly exclusionary guys who take pride in being a group of friends from Kensington. I don't know if Jesse grew up with these guys being particularly homophobic, but I bet there was a casual homophobia among some of them, nothing too overt, but homophobic all the same, even though there's only one guy in the group who really has a problem with gay guys - like when Chuck shows up, no one seems to care except for Ryan.
So, for all intents and purposes, it's a wonder why Jesse is so afraid, so much so that he's 33 years old, and still closeted, still hiding that he sleeps with men as well as women - and he is bisexual, not gay, but he's still scared about anyone finding out he likes men as well - and is so messed up by his attraction to men that he turned to the bottle to hide his anxiety and fear and everything over it, and he becomes an alcoholic, really.
But sometimes it doesn't have to be so horrible for someone to start drinking or self-destructing, sometimes it's their own fucked up thoughts, without any real outside interference, that does it, and that's what happens with Jesse.
I did love how this book took Jesse's journey. He hits rock bottom around 40, 45% and it's only up from there, really. He gets almost black out drunk - which of course, Chuck has never seen how he acts when he gets that drunk - and to make matters worse, he lets his problems with Chuck and himself manifest badly enough that he beats up Emily's abusive ex almost to death. Not that anyone would miss the guy, but that's not the point. Jesse truly reaches rock bottom.
As for the romance - I do have to say that some of my problem with this was the lack of connection between Chuck and Jesse at first. It was there, but...it wasn't enough of a connection for me. So much so that I was wondering why these men were falling for each other. We didn't get to see enough, in my opinion. The sex also felt rushed and that detracted from my enjoyment too. I was expecting more detailed and passionate sex, if not emotional yet.
Now, that connection did grow more as the book went on and these two got to a much better place, and I did come to really love them together (although the sex was still rushed, which annoyed me. I wanted the making love scenes, okay? Not enough explicitness or passion in the sex scenes for me - they even felt rushed over at times, and it was a bummer for me, especially when I know this author can write incredibly good sex scenes.) and enjoy them together. But at first I just wasn't really feeling it, though.
Of course, just as I was starting to feel it between them, everything went to shit. In the end the separation was necessary, but sure was hard to read. Also,
Spoiler
there is no cheating, but Jesse lets his ex get a little too close and personal during his almost black-out drunkness. And a part of me is like "no, he was so out of it he could barely remember anything, he didn't have all his faculties to even consent anyway" but also he does say that he just wanted to be "normal" and while he thought of Chuck while his ex was grinding on him, he let it continue because he wanted the "normalness" and also Chuck was right there seeing this happen and Jesse knew it. So...yeah, I was conflicted about that. But we know Chuck never slept with her, which was a relief. Still hate when things like that happen in romance booksSo overall, I really enjoyed this, especially the second half. I saw other reviews stating how the first half wasn't the most fun to read, and I agree. But also we have to read the first half to get that second half. We have to earn that happiness just like Jesse does. We have to see him reach rock bottom in order to see him reach true happiness. We had to see just how bad things were and how bad they got to see Jesse finally pull his head of out his ass and get his life together so he could be happy, whether or not Chuck was in his life (although Chuck is a definite bonus ;) )
So overall, I really enjoyed this and I hope to get more stories from this author in the future, I feel she is so underrated. And while this wasn't perfect for me, overall it was really good and deserving of a read (and yes, just stick with it through the first half to get to the awesome second half.)
Two thumbs up from me!
caseewashere's review
5.0
Words? What are those again!
What can I say about this book without spoiling? Other than this book has amazing rep for lgbtq and so forth. It’s relatable like sooooo relatable. I can understand where the MC’s are coming from from both their stand points. I recommend it to everyone. You gonna see me screaming it on Twitter soon promise you that. Because just feelings were felt and hit in all aspects and you hit me in the feels! Man! In the fucking feels. But in all honesty if your reading this comment trying to decide to read this or not. Read it because you won’t have a single regret. Because this book is amazon!
What can I say about this book without spoiling? Other than this book has amazing rep for lgbtq and so forth. It’s relatable like sooooo relatable. I can understand where the MC’s are coming from from both their stand points. I recommend it to everyone. You gonna see me screaming it on Twitter soon promise you that. Because just feelings were felt and hit in all aspects and you hit me in the feels! Man! In the fucking feels. But in all honesty if your reading this comment trying to decide to read this or not. Read it because you won’t have a single regret. Because this book is amazon!
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