Title: That Feeling When
Series: #lovehim: Book One
Author: S.M. James
Publisher: May Books
Length: 343 Pages
Category: Young Adult Romance
At a Glance: That Feeling When is a boy meets boy-boy loses boy-boy gets boy back story. It’s the parts around and in between those occurrences that make this such a sweet and angsty book.
Reviewed By: Lisa
Blurb: Archie Corrigan is an angry teen, pigeon-holed by a stereotype.
Landon Summers is a Hollywood heartthrob, whose role doesn’t end when the cameras stop filming.
When the two guys meet at Camp Crystal Cove, they have literally nothing in common. Despite their differences, Archie can’t help but be enthralled by Landon’s confidence, and Landon has never met anyone so completely immune to his charms.
Their unexpected friendship has them both revealing parts of themselves they’ve tried to keep hidden, but accepting the truth isn’t always easy.
Archie and Landon have to decide.
Stick to the safety of the pretend lives they’ve built up?
… Or give in to That Feeling When they’re finally happy?
Review: TFW you get your hands on a sweet and angsty Young Adult romance…
Archie Corrigan made a deal with his dad, which he lost, so now he’s spending the summer of his seventeenth year at camp trying to refocus his life goals on something that doesn’t include him becoming a professional ballet dancer. Sure, he’s heard all the slurs and taunts, and they’ve left a mark on him, just as they were intended to do, but he still loves dancing with all the passion of a dreamer. It’s just become ingrained in him to make sure the line between his sexuality and his love of ballet remains clearly defined. Archie is straight. End of story.
Landon Summers is the someone who makes Archie question that line. Landon happens to be filming a movie at Camp Crystal Cove, and his first encounter with Archie can’t be described as anything as wholesome as a meet-cute, nor is this quite an enemies-to-boyfriends story either. There are a lot of assumptions made and conclusions jumped to on both Landon’s and Archie’s part—preconceived notions such as Landon must be the typical douchey, egotistical Hollywood teen heartthrob; and Archie has got to be the preppy, privileged, spoiled rich boy he appears to be. It’s the decimating of those first impressions that begins something like a friendship between the two boys, and then evolves into something more. At least for Landon. Because Archie is straight….
“Have you ever wondered what would happen if you took a chance?”
This quote is, essentially, the novel condensed into one succinct and unvarnished ideation. That Feeling When relies on some familiar tropes of Young Adult romance, and also addresses some real-world subjects such as self-acceptance, exploring labels, and coming out. The story doesn’t gloss over these things in a simplistic way, as there is a necessary course of self-doubt and introspection on Archie’s part. He struggles mightily with his evermore confusing feelings for Landon and the fear of what those feeling will mean for him, especially when it comes to his family, his dad in particular. That fear determines and influences how he acts and reacts to everything, from Landon to girls to his dancing. It’s his reckoning, awakening, and finding someone worth taking a chance on that is the heart and soul of this story.
In the end, it all boils down to letting yourself fall.
That Feeling When is a boy meets boy/boy loses boy/boy gets boy back story. It’s the parts around and in between those occurrences that make this such a sweet and angsty book filled with all the pathos of first love and the heartbreak of first loss, and the joy of finally discovering that special someone who is worth the risk of falling for. The support Archie gets from the people he thought were least likely to have his back added an extra layer of emotion to the story, and while there were secrets that came to light, moments of confession and discovery that enlightened, acts of kindness on both Landon’s and Archie’s parts that came to define their relationship, and a blackmail threat that added more tension to an already emotion-heavy plot, it’s their romance that gives this novel so much sentiment.
TFW you get your hands on a sweet and angsty Young Adult romance can be rather nice.
You can buy That Feeling When here:
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