FIVE STAR FRIDAY Review: Bear, Otter & the Kid, by T.J. Klune

I know it’s been radio-silence from me this week. There’s been lots happening and I haven’t been able to pop in. But, I had no intention of missing Five Star Friday.

This week I selected one of my favorite sweet reads from one of my favorite authors. That’s kind of a lie. It’s not all sweetness. There’s angst, there’s some tear-jerking, great humor, but there’s also lots of love and an amazing cast of characters that create an even more amazing family finding their way.

I needed to bring something relatively light this week. So I wanted a book that shows that family doesn’t always mean the people who share our blood and genes. Sometimes it’s in the people we choose.

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The Blurb:

Three years ago, Bear McKenna’s mother took off for parts unknown with her new boyfriend, leaving Bear to raise his six-year-old brother Tyson, aka the Kid. Somehow they’ve muddled through, but since he’s totally devoted to the Kid, Bear isn’t actually doing much living—with a few exceptions, he’s retreated from the world, and he’s mostly okay with that. Until Otter comes home.

Otter is Bear’s best friend’s older brother, and as they’ve done for their whole lives, Bear and Otter crash and collide in ways neither expect. This time, though, there’s nowhere to run from the depth of emotion between them. Bear still believes his place is as the Kid’s guardian, but he can’t help thinking there could be something more for him in the world… something or someone.

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The Stats:

 

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Rating

Review:

This is my first T.J. Klune book…so I’m really late to the party and I feel the need to explain my tardiness. I’m thinking this title showed up in my recommendations about a year ago. Honestly, the title and cover probably turned me off a bit. My brain was creating images of a Big Hairy Leather Daddy and his playmate (not that there’s anything wrong with that) and I did not even want to contemplate about how “the Kid” fit into that mix. For the longest time I never even read the blurb. Finally, I did…because the recommendation wouldn’t go away, and I was mostly intrigued. Then I perused the reviews…there were some glaring ones that were a bit frightening – but thankfully didn’t include allusions to big hairy leather daddy. But I continued to put it off…for months.

There’s an even longer story involving a con-artist, a ghost, and a YouTube video about how I finally got around to buying and reading this but I’m not going into that…it might or might not involve a tiny bit of innocent cyber-stal research that has utterly endeared this author to me.

The point is I’m here now. The bigger admission is that I am delighted, in this very rare instance, to admit that I was wrong . If only my ex-husband could see those words…HA!

I loved this. Immensely. I laughed (a lot), I cried (also a lot), and totally fell in love with this incredible cast of characters. This was highly entertaining with tons – TONS – of wit and tugging of the heart strings. For a first novel – very well done. I look forward to seeing how the author has grown in the last several years. I’m also very glad this was made into a series because I wasn’t quite ready to part ways with these folks…especially the Kid. I’m excited to continue my journey through the titles of T.J. Klune.

The moral….I don’t think I have anything profound to say….other than don’t judge a book by its cover – or title – and don’t let bad reviews get in the way when there are SO many more good ones. And sometimes, when the ghosts want to be heard, you should listen.

Review posted on GoodReads.

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Queer Romance Month is still going strong and I continue to be amazed at the beautiful posts and eye-opening revelations. I’m learning a lot over there; and I think we can never learn too much about all of the amazing people in our world. Give them a visit.