Somewhere Along the Way || An Arc Review

Borrowed, Bought or ARC: This was an ARC granted to me through NetGalley and the publishers. I am very thankful for this opportunity. All thoughts published below are my honest and true opinion.

Where did I get it?: As stated above, I got this from NetGalley.

Publisher: Bold Strokes Books, Inc. (I think I’m going to start looking at Publisher pages before I request books,)

Genre/s: LGBTQIA , Women’s Fiction

Number of pages: The ARC I read was 248 pages (I could have sworn it was at least 300)

Release date: Comes out September 10rd 2019

In the summer of 1980, Maxine Cooper moves from the Midwest to San Francisco with her gay best friend, Chris, where she hopes to find love and community. But gay life in a big city is much more complicated than either of them ever expected. Life becomes a constant party, and Max slides deep into alcohol and drugs. She and Chris become estranged, and when he contracts AIDS, Max doesn’t know how to bridge the gap between them. Shattered by Chris’s death, Max must decide how she is going to live her life. Can she forgive herself for abandoning him, or will her guilt lead her down a path that guarantees destruction?

I’m going to put this right out there. I have nothing good to say about this book. I had to create a new graphic that just said thoughts because I didn’t have anything good to share. This book was hard y’all.

I received this book a few days before my grandfather got into a car accident while drinking and driving. When I started reading this book, I knew it was about alcohol abuse but I did not know how it would affect me as I read it. This book was uncomfortable for me. As a child of the late ’90’s, I personally did not relate to the era so I felt confused and out of place reading it. I did not get attached to any of the characters, especially Chris, since his character (like others) seemed only focused on getting laid, so I had a hard time empathizing with Max when she struggled with his death. Also while I understand AIDS is an STD, I was not prepared for how sex focused both MC’s were going to be. Lastly, this book became repetitive in the last third.

All in all, this book just wasn’t for me. Maybe it was because of my personal life, maybe because I’m not the target audience, I’m not sure. I don’t really want to give it a star rating because I am worried my bias makes this book worse to me than it actually is but since I technically had to for Netgalley, I will share what I rated it there.

Honestly y’all I’m not even sure how to end this post. So I guess leave me some happy, positive news or encouragement below. I love y’all immensely and hope I can shake this funk soon.