Okay this is the absolute slowest burn I’ve ever read? Like Wyatt has decided he’s in love with Easton by the time he’s like 15 and they don’t get together until their mid-30's. I had not been prepared for Easton’s wife to die in childbirth so FAIR WARNING for that, but it still takes like 12 years for them to get together even beyond that, so their get together doesn’t feel icky. It was not a perfect book, but I cried a LOT and thought their romance was lovely.

Hiding the critiques under spoiler tag:

So the way that Easton and Wyatt reunite after Wyatt has moved to Chicago is that Becca, Easton's wife, dies in childbirth. I personally don't think this was handled poorly and wasn't bothered by the "dead wife trope", however I also don't read a lot of books that utilize this as a plot point so it doesn't feel overdone for me. I know this isn't the case for a lot of folks, though, so maybe it is an overused thing.

At one point, Easton is thinking about the concept of demisexuality and how maybe that's him! But it never comes up again? So as much as I'd love to be like "yay, demi rep!" that doesn't feel quite accurate here since it's never explicitly stated. It felt like him exploring his sexuality and figuring that out was dropped for the sake of getting back to Wyatt pining.

Speaking of Wyatt's pining, him being in a full on relationship with Harrison and living with him and "trying to love him" but never actually loving him...really sucked? Like I put that the characters were lovable but it was behavior like that that led to me marking that there wasn't much character growth because that was some childish behavior.