Ruben is part of a boy band that is hotter than ever.  They are on tour and headed to Europe.  He likes his life, well most of it.  He just wishes he could say what he wants to say.

Zach is enjoying the life the bet he can.  So what if they keep turning him down for the most important thing he wants? He is on top of the world.  Or is he?

These close friends have to navigate falling for one another amid the crazy life of the music biz.  Being best friends is great, but sometimes you want more. When they reach for each other it seems to soothe the aches. But sometimes.... you have to rock the boat.  These boys are turning to men and it is a wild ride!  I give this a 4/5 Kitty's Paws UP!

**This ARC was given in exchange for an honest review by Netgalley and its publishers.

This is a really interesting take on the Frankenstein story. It focuses in on the nature of monstrousness and uses the old familiar story to say some interesting things on themes of race and family. The art is striking, full of reds and sweeping brush strokes, and fits well with the story being told. A really solid addition to the Frankenstein mythos and standalone graphic novel in its own right.

This was more fun than some of the other volumes: with the addition of a competent, female version of Ash, it adds a twist.   It wasn't overly Ash - in the way he treats women, etc - so I didn't feel as grossed out when reading him in this. 

What I didn't like was how disjointed this felt.   I loved the art, I loved the story, I loved the humor, so really other than being frustrated at not seeing how the story fit together until far, far into this, I loved everything.   Disjointed knocks down one half star.

2 spies are chosen to compete as the Love Interest for Juliet who has been deemed important enough that her future secrets/experiments will be sold to the highest bidder by an underground company.  Caden and Dylan are chosen--one Nice and one Bad.  Whichever one does not win Juliet will die. 

I loved this book.  It was suspenseful enough that I was on the edge of my seat up to the end.  I wanted to know what would happen to the loser.  I also wanted to know if the truth would come out and if rebellion would follow.  I was surprised by how it turned out.  I loved the characters.  This was done as a first person point-of-view through Caden's eyes.  The society was interesting that Caden and Dylan lived in before being loosed in the world.  I was surprised by the secondary characters.  Again not what I expected.  This is a keeper!

I don't like writing bad reviews. I don't like saying bad things about people's art. Writing is difficult and everyone enjoys different things out of their books. I don't write this to hurt anyone's feelings. That's the last thing I want to do as a reviewer. But sometimes a book is bad, and I feel like I'd be dishonest if I said I felt otherwise. I was so excited about this book. I was so ready to love this. The concept is so up my alley. And yet, by the end I was hate reading it just to get through. 

So where did it all go wrong?
The first person point of view was a mistake, especially since we only get Caden's POV - it might have worked if we got chapters with Dylan. The characters were flat and forgettable, and I didn't care about any of them. The dialogue was the worst I think I've ever read outside of beginning level writing courses. I cannot understate how bad the dialogue in this book is, I really can't. Hell, the writing in general was bad. The world made no sense, and when I started actually thinking about any of it I just got angry. If you start examining any of the world building or the plot structure there are plot holes so big you could drive a fleet of buses through them. The genre is also weirdly off-putting in that the world seems to be this odd dystopia filled with killer robots and sci-fi tech, but the characters keep referencing current pop culture and acting like they live in the here and now...which...I guess really boils down to another plot hole I can't reconcile.

But hey, spies, right? Not so much. For a book about spies no one seems to have any spy skills, nor does any spy stuff happen. At best the spy characters are actors being fed lines through an earpiece or scripts. Not spies. Okay...so romance, yeah? Except the characters have zero chemistry. Also, for a book that's supposed to highlight queer relationships most of the story focuses on the fake straight relationship. SPOILER: And worst of all? The big twist is that the queer relationship is a lie. Which made me so pissed I almost chucked my book across the room. One of the characters is only pretending to like the other. But then at the end he changes his mind and decides he's into it, apparently. In no way is that shift really explained or redeemed in any meaningful way.

So yeah. This book disappointed me, and honestly pissed me off. I waffled between one and two stars because it did have some good things to say about being gay, and what that can be like. But ultimately that's not enough to redeem it. Yes, we need more books with queer characters and relationships, but we can do better. Much much better. I want someone to actually write a book about gay spies, because this was not that book.