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A review by booksafety
Pictures of You by Leta Blake
5.0
Book safety, content warnings, and tropes down below.
I didn’t know how much longer I could stand being a person I couldn’t respect.
Some books are nearly impossible to boil down into a few paragraphs and a list of tropes. I imagine it will only get more difficult with each book in the trilogy. I put off reading this book for absolute ages, because I knew it would be angsty, emotional and hard to read. I got as much as possible of what happens spoiled so that I could deal with the content and topics.
Something in me had broken over our months together. It hadn’t been an instant break, more of a slow shatter. I could point back to moments and say, “This crack started there, and this one there,” but now I was a mess of barely-held-together glass, and it was only a matter of time until I fell apart completely.
It’s a brutal, honest, heartwrenching story about first loves, friendships and unhealthy relationships, and it really doesn’t pull any punches. This is more Peter’s story than it is a love story, and the inner turmoil Peter deals with throughout (and it really only builds) was intense, and I ended up feeling this continuous sense of dread on his behalf, because you can see how it will only end in heartbreak, and the main character knows it too.
Love was like honey—a little was good, a lot was amazing, and too much? Well, too much made a big, sticky mess, a sweet mire I was drowning in, alone and more exhausted by the minute.
Peter isn’t perfect, but he’s a good person struggling with his situation. Adam, however… I hate him with my entire being, lol. He is awful, and very early on I could see the tendrils of how his strong personality and manipulative behavior would play out, and I was both right and wrong. I was right, but it was just worse than I expected, even after getting *all* the spoilers.
“Why is the way I love so awful that someone has to be called out to blame for it?” My eyes burned. “Am I that horrible? Was he?”
I’m sure there are plenty of great reviews for this book, so I’m not even going to try to explain it all. I can already tell that the trilogy is going to leave a lasting impression, and I’ll be thinking about this book for a long time. It hit a trigger for me, so it certainly wasn’t easy, but I think it was worth it. Leta Blake has done a beautiful job with Peter and his first book, and when I read her explanation and introduction to the book, I got really emotional. You can tell this story means a lot to her, and she has brought all of that emotion to Peter and his story. Somehow, I’m really looking forward to reading the next book.
Adam didn’t have to be my future. He could be my for now. And I’d take whatever I could for as long as I could because, despite everything, I loved him, and it wasn’t going to last. We didn’t stand a chance.
I’ll give details on some of the content warnings and book safety at the very end of this review. Spoiler warning for that as well.
⬇️ Blanket spoiler warning ⬇️
⚠️ Tropes & tags ⚠️
Coming of age
The 90’s
Closeted MCs
High school
High heat
Love triangle
Historical romance
Push and pull
High school
⚠️ Content warning ⚠️
Cheating
Homophobia
Bullying
Bi erasure
Neglectful parents
Drug use (marijuana)
Underage drinking
Casual homophobic language
Physical assault (hate crime)
Brief mention of parental abuse (past)
Brief mentions of family death (cancer, some details)
Mentions of/discussions of war (desert storm)
Humiliation (verbal abuse, spanking with belt)
Hate crime/murder (past, family member, detailed)
⚠️Book safety ⚠️
Cheating: Yes
OM/OW drama: Yes
Third-act breakup: Yes
POV: 1st person, single POV
Genre: Historical/coming of age/romance, M/M
Strict roles or versatile: Versatile
MCs age: 18 and 18
Adam is the main love interest in this first book, but he is not who Peter ends up with at the end of the trilogy. There is no HFN or HEA at the end of book 1.
The cheating:
Adam starts a relationship with a girl (Leslie) while Peter and Adam are still together. Leslie is completely in the dark, so there is cheating between the main characters, as well as Adam cheating on Leslie with Peter.
OM/OW drama:
Mostly based on the cheating mentioned above. Adam has an orgasm while being spanked (not by Peter, and not the spanking situation mentioned in the content warnings) on stage during a drag show. Peter develops a small crush on a young man called Daniel who is introduced late in the book. Nothing happens between them beyond light flirting (in this book). Peter goes on a date with two different girls, and has a fake relationship with one of them for a while. Nothing intimate happens beyond hand holding and a couple pecks. Peter is mostly very loyal to Adam.
I didn’t know how much longer I could stand being a person I couldn’t respect.
Some books are nearly impossible to boil down into a few paragraphs and a list of tropes. I imagine it will only get more difficult with each book in the trilogy. I put off reading this book for absolute ages, because I knew it would be angsty, emotional and hard to read. I got as much as possible of what happens spoiled so that I could deal with the content and topics.
Something in me had broken over our months together. It hadn’t been an instant break, more of a slow shatter. I could point back to moments and say, “This crack started there, and this one there,” but now I was a mess of barely-held-together glass, and it was only a matter of time until I fell apart completely.
It’s a brutal, honest, heartwrenching story about first loves, friendships and unhealthy relationships, and it really doesn’t pull any punches. This is more Peter’s story than it is a love story, and the inner turmoil Peter deals with throughout (and it really only builds) was intense, and I ended up feeling this continuous sense of dread on his behalf, because you can see how it will only end in heartbreak, and the main character knows it too.
Love was like honey—a little was good, a lot was amazing, and too much? Well, too much made a big, sticky mess, a sweet mire I was drowning in, alone and more exhausted by the minute.
Peter isn’t perfect, but he’s a good person struggling with his situation. Adam, however… I hate him with my entire being, lol. He is awful, and very early on I could see the tendrils of how his strong personality and manipulative behavior would play out, and I was both right and wrong. I was right, but it was just worse than I expected, even after getting *all* the spoilers.
“Why is the way I love so awful that someone has to be called out to blame for it?” My eyes burned. “Am I that horrible? Was he?”
I’m sure there are plenty of great reviews for this book, so I’m not even going to try to explain it all. I can already tell that the trilogy is going to leave a lasting impression, and I’ll be thinking about this book for a long time. It hit a trigger for me, so it certainly wasn’t easy, but I think it was worth it. Leta Blake has done a beautiful job with Peter and his first book, and when I read her explanation and introduction to the book, I got really emotional. You can tell this story means a lot to her, and she has brought all of that emotion to Peter and his story. Somehow, I’m really looking forward to reading the next book.
Adam didn’t have to be my future. He could be my for now. And I’d take whatever I could for as long as I could because, despite everything, I loved him, and it wasn’t going to last. We didn’t stand a chance.
I’ll give details on some of the content warnings and book safety at the very end of this review. Spoiler warning for that as well.
⬇️ Blanket spoiler warning ⬇️
⚠️ Tropes & tags ⚠️
Coming of age
The 90’s
Closeted MCs
High school
High heat
Love triangle
Historical romance
Push and pull
High school
⚠️ Content warning ⚠️
Cheating
Homophobia
Bullying
Bi erasure
Neglectful parents
Drug use (marijuana)
Underage drinking
Casual homophobic language
Physical assault (hate crime)
Brief mention of parental abuse (past)
Brief mentions of family death (cancer, some details)
Mentions of/discussions of war (desert storm)
Humiliation (verbal abuse, spanking with belt)
Hate crime/murder (past, family member, detailed)
⚠️Book safety ⚠️
Cheating: Yes
OM/OW drama: Yes
Third-act breakup: Yes
POV: 1st person, single POV
Genre: Historical/coming of age/romance, M/M
Strict roles or versatile: Versatile
MCs age: 18 and 18
Adam is the main love interest in this first book, but he is not who Peter ends up with at the end of the trilogy. There is no HFN or HEA at the end of book 1.
The cheating:
Adam starts a relationship with a girl (Leslie) while Peter and Adam are still together. Leslie is completely in the dark, so there is cheating between the main characters, as well as Adam cheating on Leslie with Peter.
OM/OW drama:
Mostly based on the cheating mentioned above. Adam has an orgasm while being spanked (not by Peter, and not the spanking situation mentioned in the content warnings) on stage during a drag show. Peter develops a small crush on a young man called Daniel who is introduced late in the book. Nothing happens between them beyond light flirting (in this book). Peter goes on a date with two different girls, and has a fake relationship with one of them for a while. Nothing intimate happens beyond hand holding and a couple pecks. Peter is mostly very loyal to Adam.