kbranfield's review against another edition
4.0
4.5 stars.
Fans of L.B. Gregg and the Bluewater Bay series are going to love There's Something About Ari. This second installment in the series is a fast-paced and engaging novella that is quite engrossing. Intensely emotional, it is a very heartwarming and sometimes poignant second chance at love romance between two reunited friends.
Buck Ellis and Ari Valentine's close childhood friendship abruptly ended when Ari left Baywater Bay just before their high school graduation. His departure coincided with Buck's mother's death and this double loss hit Buck hard as his future forever changed. Buck abandoned his college plans to care for his younger brother Charlie and while he gladly sacrificed his future for Charlie's sake, Ari's unexpected return brings a few regrets to the surface. While their lives have gone in very different directions, one thing still quickly becomes clear: Buck's longtime attraction to Ari burns hotter than ever, but it remains to be seen whether he will find the courage to act on it.
Buck and Ari are absolutely wonderful characters and their pasts are absolutely heartbreaking. Ari's childhood was incredibly dysfunctional due to his mother's erratic behavior but he eventually triumphed over his chaotic past. Ari is finally at a good place in his life and he has mostly come to terms with the baggage from his past.
For the most part, Buck has made peace with a lot of his past as well, but he still harbors a lot of anger toward Ari. Barely keeping his head above water, Buck is still working the same job he did in high school and his dreams of college remain out of reach until Charlie is on his own. He has no desire to pick up where he and Ari left off, and his continued attraction to the seemingly unattainable Ari is definitely part of the reason why. A shocking revelation leads to a surprising encounter, but will Buck fully let Ari back into his life?
L.B. Gregg's There's Something About Ari is a short read, but the storyline and characters are fully developed. Written in first person from Buck's perspective, readers fully experience his often turbulent emotions as he comes to terms with the changes in his life. It is the perfect contribution to the fabulous Bluewater Bay series and while it can be read as a standalone, I highly recommend the entire series.
Fans of L.B. Gregg and the Bluewater Bay series are going to love There's Something About Ari. This second installment in the series is a fast-paced and engaging novella that is quite engrossing. Intensely emotional, it is a very heartwarming and sometimes poignant second chance at love romance between two reunited friends.
Buck Ellis and Ari Valentine's close childhood friendship abruptly ended when Ari left Baywater Bay just before their high school graduation. His departure coincided with Buck's mother's death and this double loss hit Buck hard as his future forever changed. Buck abandoned his college plans to care for his younger brother Charlie and while he gladly sacrificed his future for Charlie's sake, Ari's unexpected return brings a few regrets to the surface. While their lives have gone in very different directions, one thing still quickly becomes clear: Buck's longtime attraction to Ari burns hotter than ever, but it remains to be seen whether he will find the courage to act on it.
Buck and Ari are absolutely wonderful characters and their pasts are absolutely heartbreaking. Ari's childhood was incredibly dysfunctional due to his mother's erratic behavior but he eventually triumphed over his chaotic past. Ari is finally at a good place in his life and he has mostly come to terms with the baggage from his past.
For the most part, Buck has made peace with a lot of his past as well, but he still harbors a lot of anger toward Ari. Barely keeping his head above water, Buck is still working the same job he did in high school and his dreams of college remain out of reach until Charlie is on his own. He has no desire to pick up where he and Ari left off, and his continued attraction to the seemingly unattainable Ari is definitely part of the reason why. A shocking revelation leads to a surprising encounter, but will Buck fully let Ari back into his life?
L.B. Gregg's There's Something About Ari is a short read, but the storyline and characters are fully developed. Written in first person from Buck's perspective, readers fully experience his often turbulent emotions as he comes to terms with the changes in his life. It is the perfect contribution to the fabulous Bluewater Bay series and while it can be read as a standalone, I highly recommend the entire series.
emmadstanden's review
1.0
wtf i didn't realize how short this was going to be then it was suddenly over with almost no story/arc etc.
not my cuppa
not my cuppa
leahkarge's review against another edition
3.0
Rep: gay MC & LI, dyslexic LI, LI with ADHD
Warnings: ableism, addiction, fatmisia, child neglect, child abandonment
Warnings: ableism, addiction, fatmisia, child neglect, child abandonment
aligroen's review against another edition
3.0
A Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words Review An Alisa Audiobook Review:
Rating: 3 stars out of 5
Buck Ellis’s future seems pretty damn bright. With a full college scholarship in hand, he’s going to ditch Bluewater Bay and pave the way for his kid brother Charlie to do the same. The only fly in Buck’s ointment is his ten-year addiction to his best friend since second grade, his true love, and his Achilles heel: Ari Valentine, Mr. Least Likely to Succeed.
But then Buck’s mother dies, changing everything, and five years later, his future is still on hold. It’s a struggle to keep food on the table, a roof over their heads, and Charlie on the straight and narrow. Buck can’t afford any temptation, especially in the form of the newly returned, super hot, super confident, super successful television star Ari Valentine.
ADHD poster-child Ari Valentine left for Hollywood and lost everything, including his bad reputation. Then the breakthrough role of his skyrocketing career lands him back in Bluewater Bay, to the stunned disbelief of, well, everyone. But there’s only one person Ari longs to impress—the only person who ever really mattered to him, the person he left behind: Buck Ellis.
Nothing has gone right for Buck in years; his mother died, his best friend left and he was left alone to take care of his younger brother. He has pretty much spent the last five years in standstill, still working at the coffee shop and just surviving and suddenly his best friend decides to come back to town and move in next door upsetting everything. Ari is not willing to give up on Buck and is determined to keep pushing till he gets what he wants.
This was a nice story, if a bit short. Most of the book was spent with Buck determined to stay away from Ari and keep everything the same. There isn’t much of a conclusion to their problems, just Buck deciding not to fight it anymore. I wish there had been a bit more to the story and that I had been able to see them actually work through their problems a bit more.
Nick Russo once again did a wonderful job narrating this story. I could connect with the characters through the voices and emotions he portrayed.
Cover art by LC Chase is nice and follows the pattern for the series.
Sales Links: Riptide | Audible | Amazon | iTunes
Audiobook Details:
Audiobook, 2 hrs 41 min
Published: May 9, 2016 (ebook first published November 10, 2014)
Edition Language: English
Series: Bluewater Bay #2
Rating: 3 stars out of 5
Buck Ellis’s future seems pretty damn bright. With a full college scholarship in hand, he’s going to ditch Bluewater Bay and pave the way for his kid brother Charlie to do the same. The only fly in Buck’s ointment is his ten-year addiction to his best friend since second grade, his true love, and his Achilles heel: Ari Valentine, Mr. Least Likely to Succeed.
But then Buck’s mother dies, changing everything, and five years later, his future is still on hold. It’s a struggle to keep food on the table, a roof over their heads, and Charlie on the straight and narrow. Buck can’t afford any temptation, especially in the form of the newly returned, super hot, super confident, super successful television star Ari Valentine.
ADHD poster-child Ari Valentine left for Hollywood and lost everything, including his bad reputation. Then the breakthrough role of his skyrocketing career lands him back in Bluewater Bay, to the stunned disbelief of, well, everyone. But there’s only one person Ari longs to impress—the only person who ever really mattered to him, the person he left behind: Buck Ellis.
Nothing has gone right for Buck in years; his mother died, his best friend left and he was left alone to take care of his younger brother. He has pretty much spent the last five years in standstill, still working at the coffee shop and just surviving and suddenly his best friend decides to come back to town and move in next door upsetting everything. Ari is not willing to give up on Buck and is determined to keep pushing till he gets what he wants.
This was a nice story, if a bit short. Most of the book was spent with Buck determined to stay away from Ari and keep everything the same. There isn’t much of a conclusion to their problems, just Buck deciding not to fight it anymore. I wish there had been a bit more to the story and that I had been able to see them actually work through their problems a bit more.
Nick Russo once again did a wonderful job narrating this story. I could connect with the characters through the voices and emotions he portrayed.
Cover art by LC Chase is nice and follows the pattern for the series.
Sales Links: Riptide | Audible | Amazon | iTunes
Audiobook Details:
Audiobook, 2 hrs 41 min
Published: May 9, 2016 (ebook first published November 10, 2014)
Edition Language: English
Series: Bluewater Bay #2
suze_1624's review against another edition
3.0
Mates from an early age, Ari and Buck loose the closeness in high school, then at 18 Ari deisappears completely, just as Buck's life is thrown a huge curveball.
Ari is the bad boy done good, coming back home as a TV star, but harbours his own secret.
Buck's life has been all about raising his brother and his closed off personality has been forged by this experience. He is quite grumpy and closed off to Ari.
The story is fairly short and moved along at a good pace. I enjoyed it but back stories on both men were by necessity quite sparse and I would have loved more history (being greedy!).
The story is really all about the two men, other characters are generally incidental. 3.5*
Ari is the bad boy done good, coming back home as a TV star, but harbours his own secret.
Buck's life has been all about raising his brother and his closed off personality has been forged by this experience. He is quite grumpy and closed off to Ari.
The story is fairly short and moved along at a good pace. I enjoyed it but back stories on both men were by necessity quite sparse and I would have loved more history (being greedy!).
The story is really all about the two men, other characters are generally incidental. 3.5*
the_novel_approach's review against another edition
4.0
3.5 Stars ~ Welcome back to Bluewater Bay! If you don’t know, Bluewater Bay is a series of books set in, well, Bluewater Bay (shocking, I know). The series is structured around a sleepy Pacific Northwest town that has been inundated by the cast and crew of the next hot supernatural TV show (a la Forks and the Twilight movies). Each book is written by a different M/M author, giving the series a fun, who’s who in the genre kind of vibe. The stories each highlight a different resident couple, at least one half of which is usually connected to the TV show in some way. Each book can stand alone, but familiar characters show up throughout, which is entertaining.
In this second installment to the series, we meet Buck Ellis. He’s had a rough five years. His best friend (and secret first love) Ari Valentine ran off to LA after stealing cash from Buck’s car to buy the bus ticket. Then Buck’s mother died, and since then, he’s sacrificed pretty much all of his former hopes and dreams to ensure that his younger brother has remained safe, grounded, and in his care. These two events are the defining pillars of Buck’s adult life, and they happened on the same awful day.
Buck’s basically been living day to day, struggling to make ends meet and keep his brother on track. His rut is interrupted when one of the actors from the wildly popular TV show Wolf’s Landing moves into the house next door. I don’t think it will surprise any of us that the actor turns out to be Ari Valentine, on a mission to mend the rift with his former friend. Buck’s understandably guarded, slightly cynical, and focused on his brother, but Ari’s determined to at least get a chance to explain what happened.
This is a sweet little romance. I’m a sucker for a good second chance, especially after the characters have worked as hard to earn it as these two. Most of that hard work happens off the page, which is one reason I rated the story 3.5 stars.
I would have liked to see more. Nevertheless, the pacing is good and the resolution is satisfying enough. Given the length of the book, we do get to learn a fair bit about the characters, which is nice. And we do get some hints of that lovely humor L.B. Gregg writes so well.
The other reason I rated it 3.5 instead of higher is because this is one of those books that made me want to step into the character’s shoes for a few pages so I could argue for them. As in, YOU’RE NOT DOING IT RIGHT. MOVE OVER AND LET ME DO IT.
Specifically, there’s a bit of a dust up when, at one point, Buck loses track of his teenage brother. I REALLY wanted to jump in and give a couple characters the what-for in the (metaphorical) explosion that happens at the climax of this series of events. I had talking points and everything, none of which got covered by the actual characters. Which is fine, I’m not the author and if I want something a certain way, I should shut up and write a book. But at the same time, I hate it when an argument happens half-way. I don’t want to spoil the following events, so this probably won’t make much sense, but I’ll try. Everybody got sidetracked by something Buck asked Ari when he was angry, and no one got back to the fact that Buck was ABSOLUTELY correct to be royally pissed off. Not even Buck! He ended up apologizing for asking a question I did not feel was actually that out of line. Particularly if you realize that Ari’s been a stranger for five years, how is Buck to know if Ari may have changed or in what ways? Then no one really apologizes to Buck, and he deserved AT LEAST two rounds of groveling. It made me cranky for him and dissatisfied with the whole scene. Which I guess speaks to how invested I was in the characters. So, maybe that’s actually good?
Regardless of that, and overall, I enjoyed the book. It’s a satisfying second chance story, and a fun second book in the series.
Narration: I’ve listened to a few books by Nick J. Russo now, and he always does a nice job. He lands more on the side of performance than reading, though if reading to performing were a spectrum, he’s more in the middle than other narrators I’ve heard. He does provide some slight differentiation between character voices. They aren’t super distinct from each other, but enough to help with understanding and lend color to each voice. I gave him 3.5 stars, in part because there are several mispronunciations. Not awful, and nothing that I was mad about, but enough to make me go, “Say, huh?” a few times. It made me wonder who proofed the audio and whether they were paying attention the whole time.
Reviewed by Cassie for The Novel Approach Reviews
In this second installment to the series, we meet Buck Ellis. He’s had a rough five years. His best friend (and secret first love) Ari Valentine ran off to LA after stealing cash from Buck’s car to buy the bus ticket. Then Buck’s mother died, and since then, he’s sacrificed pretty much all of his former hopes and dreams to ensure that his younger brother has remained safe, grounded, and in his care. These two events are the defining pillars of Buck’s adult life, and they happened on the same awful day.
Buck’s basically been living day to day, struggling to make ends meet and keep his brother on track. His rut is interrupted when one of the actors from the wildly popular TV show Wolf’s Landing moves into the house next door. I don’t think it will surprise any of us that the actor turns out to be Ari Valentine, on a mission to mend the rift with his former friend. Buck’s understandably guarded, slightly cynical, and focused on his brother, but Ari’s determined to at least get a chance to explain what happened.
This is a sweet little romance. I’m a sucker for a good second chance, especially after the characters have worked as hard to earn it as these two. Most of that hard work happens off the page, which is one reason I rated the story 3.5 stars.
I would have liked to see more. Nevertheless, the pacing is good and the resolution is satisfying enough. Given the length of the book, we do get to learn a fair bit about the characters, which is nice. And we do get some hints of that lovely humor L.B. Gregg writes so well.
The other reason I rated it 3.5 instead of higher is because this is one of those books that made me want to step into the character’s shoes for a few pages so I could argue for them. As in, YOU’RE NOT DOING IT RIGHT. MOVE OVER AND LET ME DO IT.
Specifically, there’s a bit of a dust up when, at one point, Buck loses track of his teenage brother. I REALLY wanted to jump in and give a couple characters the what-for in the (metaphorical) explosion that happens at the climax of this series of events. I had talking points and everything, none of which got covered by the actual characters. Which is fine, I’m not the author and if I want something a certain way, I should shut up and write a book. But at the same time, I hate it when an argument happens half-way. I don’t want to spoil the following events, so this probably won’t make much sense, but I’ll try. Everybody got sidetracked by something Buck asked Ari when he was angry, and no one got back to the fact that Buck was ABSOLUTELY correct to be royally pissed off. Not even Buck! He ended up apologizing for asking a question I did not feel was actually that out of line. Particularly if you realize that Ari’s been a stranger for five years, how is Buck to know if Ari may have changed or in what ways? Then no one really apologizes to Buck, and he deserved AT LEAST two rounds of groveling. It made me cranky for him and dissatisfied with the whole scene. Which I guess speaks to how invested I was in the characters. So, maybe that’s actually good?
Regardless of that, and overall, I enjoyed the book. It’s a satisfying second chance story, and a fun second book in the series.
Narration: I’ve listened to a few books by Nick J. Russo now, and he always does a nice job. He lands more on the side of performance than reading, though if reading to performing were a spectrum, he’s more in the middle than other narrators I’ve heard. He does provide some slight differentiation between character voices. They aren’t super distinct from each other, but enough to help with understanding and lend color to each voice. I gave him 3.5 stars, in part because there are several mispronunciations. Not awful, and nothing that I was mad about, but enough to make me go, “Say, huh?” a few times. It made me wonder who proofed the audio and whether they were paying attention the whole time.
Reviewed by Cassie for The Novel Approach Reviews
cadiva's review against another edition
3.0
It's okay, starts with so much promise but is wrapped up far too quickly and without really feeling like the reader is getting a payoff for investing in the two MCs.
Another couple of chapters with a little bit more background and fleshing out of the narrative would have brought this one up.
It's really a 2 star story, I've given it an extra one for the hottie on the cover.
Another couple of chapters with a little bit more background and fleshing out of the narrative would have brought this one up.
It's really a 2 star story, I've given it an extra one for the hottie on the cover.
prgchrqltma's review against another edition
3.0
Fairly fluffy, childhood friends to lovers. Some family drama. Somewhat diverting to listen to, but not sure I'd continue with this author.