Nick Russo x Andy Fleming forever. These two! 🥰 I don’t know if I’d go so far as to call Andy a himbo, but he’s just a little clueless and forgetful but also so sweet and willing to be emotionally vulnerable. The care is everywhere: in meals shared, in Yankee games attended, in lighting each other’s cigarettes, in stolen quiet moments down in the newspaper morgue files, in carefully worded long distance phone calls, and so much more. This story highlights the challenges of being queer in the late 1950s. What a wonderful and emotional love story. Read with your eyeballs for maximum enjoyment (the narration is just OK).

This is the bar I’m setting for the sake of comparison when it comes to M/M romance written by a woman. There’s something telling about the level of thoughtfulness and intentionality behind We Could Be So Good. It never felt fetishized (but I’m a straight cis woman, my opinion is moot) as some popular contemporary M/M novels written by female romance authors can be. Honestly, it made me pause to reflect that my reading has not been as inclusive as I’d like it to be. A good check on my own blind spot.