“I don’t want to graduate and be sitting around on some random porch ten years from now, regretting. You have to live in the moment. You can’t let experiences pass you by without doing anything about it.” — Susane Colasanti
Author: Jeanette Grey
Publisher: Samhain Publishing
Pages/Word Count: 247 Pages
Rating: 4 Stars
Blurb: Love isn’t rocket science. It’s much, much harder.
Determination and elbow grease propelled Greg London from blue-collar background to Ph.D. candidate. His single-mindedness doesn’t leave a lot of room for a personal life, but that’s the price of success. Besides, it’s not like the boring nerd ever ends up with the hot guy.
Then his housemate, gorgeous undergraduate jock Marshall Sulkowski, invites him to watch a movie. In his room. Side by side on his bed. Needless to say, the sexual tension is wreaking havoc with Greg’s focus.
Marsh seems to have it all—looks, charm, and a baseball scholarship to a great school. In reality, his father’s cut him off, and he’s floundering and desperate for a break.
One impulsive kiss leads to a red-hot affair that gets them a little bit of what they need to stay afloat. But as the end of the semester approaches and the pressure rises, Marsh realizes charm may have gotten him into his brilliant lover’s pants, but he’ll have to dig deeper to discover what they both need.
Review: Get What You Need (apart from being a line from my favorite Stones song) is a pretty typical opposites attract romance. Both men think they aren’t worthy of the other, and that here is no way he could possibly want me. Through some serious attraction, convincing on both parts, and a lot of getting to know the person behind the stereotype, they find out that they were wrong about almost everything they initially thought about each other.
Marshall Sulkowski finds himself in need of affordable housing at the beginning of the semester, and his budget isn’t all that big. He winds up renting a room way off campus, with three graduate students. He has a scholarship that pays for some of his education, but a large portion is his responsibility, and for reasons that are eventually revealed, his parents have stopped paying the bills. Marsh is a senior, so he only has to make it through one more year. The problem is that he has no idea what he wants to do when he graduates. He has never even given it a thought.
Greg London is a Ph.D. candidate and a scientific genius. He works supernaturally hard to do well with his education because his blue-collar parents have made many sacrifices so he can chase his dream. While he is most definitely attracted to Marshall from the day he moves in, he knows that the nerd (him) doesn’t stand a chance with the hot jock (Marsh.)
The main problem these two guys have is that they don’t freaking talk to each other. They have sex and when one or the other wants to stay the night, neither one says anything. Then they both wind up with hurt feelings, thinking they are only good for sex. A couple of words exchanged after their mutual orgasms could have taken care of this issue right quick. Jeanette Grey does an excellent job of capturing the emotions Greg and Marsh both feel as they seemingly reject each other as anything other than a sex partner, reinforcing their insecurities. Ms. Grey writes the sex so well it makes the temperature in the room rise a few degrees.
As their “relationship” grows and they start to share bits and pieces of themselves outside the sheets, they begin to spend more time in the same room while wearing clothing. It is during this time that Marsh and Greg realize that they are compatible as more than convenient sex partners. It takes guts to share their insecurities, and as one falls, it’s like insecurity dominoes as they show their true inner selves to each other.
Eventually some sneaky underhanded behavior (totally motivated by love and caring) is required to get the two men over the final hurdle into an actual relationship. It made me smile a whole lot to see Ms. Grey take two clueless men, one the stupid jock stereotype and one the absentminded brilliant scientist stereotype, and show the reader that under all the societal labels, they’re just guys. They both want someone to spend the night with. Someone to wake with a kiss in the morning. Someone to discuss the important decisions in their lives with. Someone to be there to support them in the things they are passionate about. Someone to look forward to seeing at the end of the day.
Get What You Need isn’t terribly angsty, although with two communication-challenged men involved, there is bound to be a certain amount of angst, and I really wanted Marsh and Greg to get their individual and collective acts together. It isn’t a profound or challenging read, but it is pleasant and lovely.
This is a great, feel-good summer read.
You can buy Get What You Need here:
