I picked this up because I loved You Should Be So Lucky, and thought this would be just as good. It is not. I liked the characters, but there’s not much of a plot to speak of (despite clear hints/seeds of plots) and the pacing drags on a lot. The central relationship is great. With any luck, that’s what I’ll remember about this book.

This book is amazing, I've already added it to my physical book wishlist!  

Sebastian's story is a beautiful narrative of love in a time of persecution, and queer joy and resilience. Nick and Andy are the friends-to-lovers we all want and I absolutely loved their story and characterizations. I also love the way bisexuality was handled in the book. 

Sebastian paints a great picture of late 1950s New York, the changes going on from shifting societal attitudes to gentrification and development. There's enough historical accuracy for it to be realistic with enough wish fulfillment to make it a great HEA to escape into. Like Nick, I'm always on the search for beautiful queer stories with those sweet happy endings. 

Featuring great ADHD and anxiety representation, awesome side characters, and an orange cat that lives up to the stereotype. 

10/10 would recommend. 

A total swoon fest. I just want to wrap Andy and Nick up keep them safe forever and ever.

I adore Nick and Andy, Cat Sebastian writing mid-century New York, every single side character, painfully awkward flirting, and even that silly orange cat. This is often described as cozy and low-angst, and that's true for the character interactions - this is flawlessly executed friends-to-lovers, where the characters have deep-seated respected and care for each other, so we always know they will be kind, even when they're dummies. I would note, though, that the external conflict and the periphery of the story is stressy - this is 1950s New York, so it's obviously hostile to queer men, and the threat of the police lurking throughout this entire story had me on edge for a large part of the plot. 
This is for those who love slice-of-life trope lasagna (Can we make that a thing? It's no haphazard trope soup, but a rich and layered dish of all of my very favorite tropes?). If you love friends-to-lovers, caretaking, hurt-him-and-I'll-hurt-you, let-me-make-you-soup, roommates-to-more, etc., this is swoony and delicious. 

Also - I LOVED the bi-awakening we see on page. It is one of the most familiar and affirming I've seen in romance recently, and it gave me lots of fuzzy feelings. 

I received a galley of this book through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I completely binge read this book in one day. I just could not put this book down. Something about it was just so incredibly compelling to me, and I just wanted to keep reading. I think Cat Sebastian really did a great job transporting me into this world. It was clear a lot of research went into the time period, and I was just completely transported into it. I haven't ever read a historical romance that's set in the late 1950's like this one. I thought it was really interesting. Especially since we're also in the journalism/news paper world in this time. It just was an interesting backdrop to a wonderful love story.
So yeah, I did really like the romance. It is quite angsty, but also really sweet. The dynamic between Nick and Andy is just so well created, and developed. They love each other so deeply, and have such a deep respect for each other. I love the little things they did just to make the other happy, the communication they had was incredible as well. However, we are in midcentury New York, and homophobia is rampant. That backdrop does make this book quite angsty as well. However, don't worry this never gets too dark.
I really liked Nick and Andy as well. They were really compelling characters to follow and I loved how this book followed both of their POV's for different chunks of the novel. Their personal storylines were also really interesting. I also quite liked Nick's family, even if he does have a difficult relationship with them. It just was really well executed. Andy's relationship with his dad was also really interesting. I also quite liked the cast of side characters, and I'm excited this is a series because I want to see some of these side characters take center stage. 
The only reason I didn't end up giving this a five star is that throughout the entire book I felt like it was building up to something, and it just didn't. I don't know. I feel like this didn't really have a climax like most books do. I wanted it to pack a punch, and it never did. I don't know if this makes sense but yeah.

This book makes my heart so full. Their lives in fear of being found out are recognized, but fear doesn't embody everything this story has to offer. Above all else, it's a sweet tale of two men finding themselves and support -- the forever kind -- in each other. 

This book was perfection. It’s a historical fiction, friends to lovers book set in 1950s New York, when it was illegal and very dangerous to be queer. This couple not only has to figure out how to be in a loving relationship together but also how to break down the walls of traditional masculinity to be themselves with each other. It’s sappy and lovely and way more than I thought it was going to be!

 

Apparently, I am on a roll with choosing books that have some really high quality later-in-life bisexual realizations rep. (See my Astrid Parker Doesn't Fail review.) And I am not mad about it. But also, I actually picked up this book because between the one previous Sebastian romance I've read being great (The Queer Principles of Kitt Webb) and the fact that this one was blurbed a couple times as "for Newsies lovers" (which I *very very much* am), it seemed like a general winner. Let me spend this review trying to describe for you all the ways that that is *so* accurate. 

 

Nick Russo grew up in a rough Brooklyn neighborhood and worked hard to land himself a city reporter position with a big name newspaper. Andy Fleming is newspaper royalty, his late mother having won awards for her journalism, and his father is expecting him to take over running the newspaper he brought up from nothing. But Andy is a little bit lost and a whole lot of scattered, and struggles enough taking care of himself, much less an entire business. Despite Andy's near constant bumbling, and Nick's now-innate self-protective habit of never letting anyone close (being a gay man in the 1950s is unsafe in so many ways), they find themselves growing close in an unlikely friendship. When a personal-life situation ends with Nick offering Andy a place to stay for awhile, those feelings of friendship grow into something more, on both sides. Something beautiful and sweet, but also really fragile under the circumstances and climate. Can Nick and Andy take these feelings that they share in secret and let them exist, for real, in a shared future? 

 

Wow. I mean, I am into romance and queer romance and, obviously, Newsies, but I was still not expecting this book to go as hard as it did. I was invested. I *am* invested. I literally cannot stop thinking about these characters. I had some hesitation because, knowing this was a particularly hostile time for queer people in the US (not that current lawmakers aren't trying to take us back there or anything), but like, I feel like I need to be careful with that type of content, for my own mental health. And I generally dislike this time period anyways (like I might be the only person I know who thought Mad Men was terrible). But I am so, so glad that I went for it anyways, because I *loved* this romance. The newspaper coworker setting was a really cute starting place for this relationship. It's a realistic place for people to meet and, with the "travel" required for journalism, it gave space for a variety of locational interactions in a natural way. I thought the way Sebastian handled the situation that ended with Nick and Andy as roommates was also done really smoothly. It could have easily been forced or awkward, as far as plot development, but it wasn't at all. So good. 

 

OMG the slow burn build and tension in the relationship growth from friends to…more than friends...is exquisite. Oh my heart, and OH the emotional investment. The slow awakening Andy has, facilitated by how much easier it is to just focus on liking girls and ignoring the other part of a more fluid sexuality reality, is so perfectly developed and relatable (for me). I thought that Nick and Andy's "opposites attract" vibes were spot on too. Nick's tough exterior and sweet, protective inside (any other Newsies lovers out there read this and picture Spot Conlon, or just me?) combined fantastically with Andy's muddled exterior and internal strength (at least when it came to the people/things he cared about). Honestly, there were times where my heart almost couldn't stand the "fondness" that kept being highlighted between them. The contradictions of safety and vulnerability in relationships are perfectly portrayed here - clumsy but easy, rough but tender, exposed but safe - and the bone deep certainty they develop and hold on to in each other is everything.  

 

I want to take a moment to recognize the wonderful historical fiction depiction of queer life Sebastian built here. (Wonderful regarding her portrayal and writing, not wonderful as in "the reality was a good one.") It's an important reminder that queer people have always been here, always had to face the impossible decisions to be who they are/love who they love and safety/security. And it's also a gorgeous reminder that there’s also always been community and connection and (even if not widespread) recognition and acceptance and love and hope too. The ending does a perfect job bringing those two realities together, and allowing a circumstantial HEA for Nick and Andy, who deserve all that and more. Not everything is perfect and rosy (and there's a reminder in there that money can purchase certain levels of safety and not everyone has access to that), but the power of promise and anticipation for the potential of the future is strong. And that means something big. 

 

Look, I am devastatingly invested in this adorably hapless couple. Yes, historically the time period required haplessness (and carefully curated paranoia) for real safety reasons that are terrible. But this small fictional literary bubble burst my damn heart and I cannot. Came for the Newsies comparisons, stayed for soul-scorching friends to lovers romance. My god I could have read about these characters in a book three times this long. 

 

 

 “Even if he never does anything about it, he's still queer.” 

 

“The look is - it isn't anything Andy's ever seen before. It's almost a smile, if smiles were made of molten metal and bad intentions.” 

 

“Families might usually be bonded by blood, but maybe sometimes they're bonded by shared secrets, by a delicate mixture of caution and faith, by the conviction that hiding together is better in every way than hiding alone.” 

 

“Fear of exposure has been a constant in his life; he doesn't know how to stop being afraid any more than he knows how to stop his heart from beating. Sometimes he feels like the fear is crowding out everything else, though. He wants the good things in his life to take up the space they deserve, but he doesn't know how to go about doing that, even if it’s possible.” 

 

“Maybe the trick is to put fear in its place so it doesn't take over. [...] He can believe that the future they have is worth more than his fear, and he can do what it takes to make that future as safe and happy as possible.”