Tal Bauer is a new read to me, but I\u2019ve seen his name and this book, You & Me, a lot around KU and MM reader groups. Given the shower of positive responses, I decided to pick this up. Based on the excerpt, I thought I was in for a light and cozy read. Well, it wasn\u2019t exactly light, but it was cozy and warm and full of love. So much love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n\n\nA single dads, friends-to-lovers MM Romance.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Landon Larsen is the envy of all the dads in Last Waters, Texas. He\u2019s cool, confident, and put together. He and his son \u2014 the high school\u2019s all star-star quarterback \u2014 have the perfect father-son relationship. He\u2019s such a super Dad, it\u2019s almost sickening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m not cool, or confident, and my relationship with my son couldn\u2019t be worse. He\u2019s barely speaking to me, and a year after my wife died, we\u2019re both clinging to the wreckage of our family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Landon\u2019s son and mine are best friends and\u2014of course\u2014Landon is the football Team Dad. And thought 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\u2019s broken between us. Now I\u2019m spending all my free time with the team \u2014 and with Landon \u2014 and the more we\u2019re together, the deeper our friendship grows. My son is opening up, too, little by little. I think I\u2019m getting him back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\u2019s just one giant problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m head over heels<\/em> for Landon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019ve never been attracted to men in my life\u2026 until him. Landon draws me in without even trying, and the harder I fight this, the deeper I fall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Crushing on my son\u2019s best friend\u2019s father must be my biggest parenting failure ever, but I can\u2019t get enough of Landon. Falling for him puts each fragile moment I\u2019ve rebuilt with my son at risk. What would he think if he knew I craved his best friend\u2019s dad? I\u2019m playing with fire, but I can\u2019t turn off these feelings Landon has unlocked inside of me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Of course, a guy like Landon could never<\/em> fall for someone like me. It\u2019s pointless to even imagine we could be something together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So why did I just kiss him?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nWow, that\u2019s a long synopsis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The book opens with Luke Hale \u2014 a broken and miserable person who feels like he failed in both life and fatherhood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nFailure lived inside me like an organ. I could feel it pumping alongside my heart. Keeping me alive, even when I didn\u2019t want it to.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
That first paragraph grabbed me and didn\u2019t let go. Luke\u2019s definition of failure, how he sucks, and how he tries so hard to make things right \u2014 all in the first few pages of the book. It\u2019s gripping. His trepidations are infectious. I fear for Luke, how his efforts might not earn him the result he wanted, but I\u2019m also rooting for him. Who hasn\u2019t had moments when you feel like you have done nothing right? I want to see Luke succeed, and gain back his son and his family. His life and happiness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nHe was the easiest person to be around that I\u2019d ever met. He\u2019d burrowed into my life and set himself up like he had always been a part of my world. We were a puzzle made of two pieces, and when we fit together, all the sharp edges of life seemed squared off, blunted.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
I was hooked by Luke\u2019s wish to reconcile with his son Emmett, but I stayed for Luke and Landon\u2019s moments. While their \u201cmeet-cute\u201d isn\u2019t exactly cute with Luke still wallowing in his self-loathing, the eventual cute part is to die for. Their easy friendship, the late-night texts, the volunteering activities, that slow-burn romance \u2014 ugh. Like I said, too cute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I love being inside Luke\u2019s head. Like Landon said, Luke has a different way of seeing the world. Inserting Landon\u2019s POV will break immersion. And I can\u2019t believe I\u2019m saying this as a mostly single POV fan, but I would love to read Landon\u2019s POV. I think there are also interesting things inside his head, too. Though I guess, there won\u2019t be much character growth for him, seeing as he\u2019s already stable, the constant one in the story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While the You & Me in the title means Luke and Landon, I think, it may also apply to Luke and Emmett. The family subplot ties neatly to the romance plot and is essential to Luke\u2019s growth. Life doesn\u2019t magically rearrange itself just because he falls in love, but he has to work and fight for it. Especially with his relationship with his son. I loved seeing them grow closer throughout the book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You & Me took my heart, not just with the story and its characters, but with the writing, too. The descriptions are *chef\u2019s kiss. These are some of my favorite lines from the book: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nIf I could find it, maybe I could cut this pulsing mass out of me that kept fucking everything up. But if I could cut my failure out, would there be anything left of me?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n\nWhat was left between us? Did he even remember Saturday morning pancakes and cartoons? Or did he only remember that distance?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n\nWhat if, after I poured out my heart, my son stomped it with his cleats?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n\nHey, Google, I thought. How do you break your own heart first so someone else can\u2019t?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n\nMy shirt, my skin, absorbed his tears. My body would always collect and cradle his tears. My arms would shelter him forever.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n\nA child\u2019s love is hard-fought, hard-won. You have to earn it.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n\n\u201cYou\u2019re classically handsome. You have the face that all men want,\u201d I said, grinning at him. \u201cBut there\u2019s so much more to you. Your looks would be empty on anyone else. It\u2019s who you are that fills everything in.\u201d I was rambling now. Full speed on a wild tear. \u201cI can see your dedication in the lines of your face. Your work ethic in the cut of your jaw. I know you love life when I see you smile, and even when you\u2019re not smiling, the laugh lines show you\u2019d rather be. I know you\u2019re a father when I look into your eyes, and I know you\u2019re a good one when I see those eyes are kind. When you\u2019re you, you light up, and all these different parts of you combine, and everything that you are bursts free. You\u2019re like color exploding in a black-and-white world.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tal Bauer is a new read to me, but I\u2019ve seen his name and this…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8097,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,119],"tags":[22,121,32,122,57,58,59,60,74,123,76,124,120],"class_list":["post-8095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mm-standalones","category-tal-bauer","tag-bi-awakening","tag-contemporary","tag-english-novel","tag-friends-to-lovers","tag-mm-fiction","tag-mm-novel","tag-mm-romance","tag-mm-standalones","tag-romance","tag-single-parents","tag-slow-burn","tag-sports-romance","tag-tal-bauer"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/aflowerbookmark.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/you-and-me.jpg?fit=427%2C640&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pflNLu-26z","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aflowerbookmark.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aflowerbookmark.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aflowerbookmark.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aflowerbookmark.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aflowerbookmark.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8095"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/aflowerbookmark.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8095\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8134,"href":"https:\/\/aflowerbookmark.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8095\/revisions\/8134"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aflowerbookmark.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aflowerbookmark.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aflowerbookmark.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aflowerbookmark.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}