Matthew reads, I guess...

  Today I’m talking about one of those books that I really have no idea how I came about it, but I did. It might have been a recommendation, it might have been Twitter, I don’t know. And that’s not me saying, “Ooh look at this book I found”, it just turned up, I guess. Either way, it’s If I Can Give You That by Michael Gray Bulla. The blurb says that seventeen-year-old Gael is used to keeping to himself. Though his best friend gets him to attend a meeting of Plus, a support group for LGBTQIA+ teens, Gael doesn’t plan on sharing much. Where would he even start? Between supporting his mother through bouts of depression, keeping his distance from his estranged father, and navigating senior year as a transgender boy at a conservative Tennessean high school, his life is a lot to unload on strangers. So when he meets open, easy going Declan, Gael can’t help but feel a little out of his depth. As their relationship deepens, Gael begins to find himself between the tentative joys of a...

So I read All That’s Left in the World by Erik J Brown, and it was one of my favourite books in the year that I read it. That was all of the persuading I needed to pick up the book I’m talking about today, Lose You to Find Me , also by Erik J Brown. The blurb says that Tommy Dees dreams of being a chef. He’s been working as a waiter to get the experience he needs to attend one of the best culinary schools in the world. And all is going to plan. Until old crush Gabe shows up and Tommy is assigned to train him. Gabe, with the dimples and kind heart, who Tommy fell for at summer camp, age eleven, and then never saw again. Unfortunately, Gabe doesn’t remember Tommy at all. But old feelings resurface, distracting Tommy from all his plans. With the chef school application looming and Gabe on his mind, Tommy is determined to keep it all together – but what is love isn’t meant to follow a recipe? Chapter one is actually split in two, with a prologue of how Tommy and Gabe were basically besti...