Something Like Summer (Something Like... Book 1)

Benjamin Bentley came out of the closet when he was fourteen. His parents are loving and accepting, as is his best friend Allison. If only the same could be said of Ben's classmates. Ever since Ben came out of the closet he has been the school piranha - bullied by the jocks, sneered at by the cheerleaders and even his teachers are wary of his open sexuality. It's no surprise that Ben is the only `out' teenager at his Houston school . . . and if he's honest, he can't ever imagine meeting someone and finally having a proper boyfriend. And then Mr Blue Shoes runs by. The summer before senior year Ben spots a new face around town. A tall, dark, handsome senior has just moved into the area and Ben is smitten. But then school starts and Tim Wyman (aka `Mr Blue Shoes') turns out to be just like all the rest. He hangs with the jocks, starts dating the prettiest prom queen and wouldn't look twice at Ben . . . until the day that Ben literally crashes into him. What starts as friendship soon has Ben receiving his first kiss and desperately wishing that Tim would come out of the closet and into the open with him. But where Ben is happy being honest with himself, Tim is wary of his pious parents and becoming a school outcast. Tim is the love of Ben's young life, but Ben doesn't want to be anyone's dirty secret and their affair ends on a sour note. . . Skip ahead four years and Ben is studying in Chicago when he meets Jace. Jace is a twenty-six-year-old air steward who makes Ben's…

Jay Bell is a remarkable story teller. The author of the “Something Like…” stories, I picture his office with two laptops, one for the project at hand and one for keeping track of the many characters he explores through about twenty books. There are yellow post-its everywhere, a cup of room temperature coffee with current pop music playing and if I were he, an ashtray with at least one cigarette burning. But I suspect that Mr. Bell doesn’t smoke. None of his characters do. They’re young and fit and active. I’ve lived a fairly “straight” life- whatever that means- and never gave much thought to the differences between my family and the families of the LGBT people in my life. Me? I’m bisexual, somewhere in the middle of the Kinsey Scale, a measurement of sexuality that one of Mr. Bell’s characters taught me. What I was moved by is just how normal everyone is. Their lives are important and Mr. Bell writes character driven narrative, his dialogue is real, and any sex scenes (there are several) are comfortable, even hot, but always necessary to the story. Having read a lot of gay fiction lately I find Jay Bell to be the very best, chewing my way through all his “Something Like…” books over the summer. Sixteen of them, each book bringing us closer to his characters. Gay, straight, Bi, Thai, we meet and live with all these characters and we come to love them, like an extended family; not many writers have achieved this. Not that I have found. And fortunately for us, Jay Bell is…

There are two ways I can sum up this book: “May this love find me.” “May this love never find me.” This book explores both, and I’ll let you decide which belongs to which relationship. What surprised me most was how deeply I connected with Ben. I’ve had a love like him and Tim. The kind that feels magnetic and unresolved, where emotion gets twisted into longing and memories. When you’re inside something like that, it’s nearly impossible to see the manipulation, the selfishness, and the emotional toll. Tandem reading with Tim’s book gave me insight into his motivations, causing me to understand him better, but didn’t diminish my dislike toward him. I didn’t see meaningful growth from Tim. It felt like his way of loving Ben was to drag Ben back into who Ben used to be instead of meeting him as the person he had become. I’ve known a love like Ben and Jace too. The kind where you’re cared for instead of always being the caretaker, where the respect is mutual, and where communication actually happens. The connection between Ben and Jace felt real with how they worked every day to strengthen their relationship. Their communication and understanding of one another is something that really made me fall in love with this story. I’m so glad I stayed with it through the emotional turbulence and finished the story. Ben’s growth felt painfully realistic to me. His internal conflict between heart and mind, between history and emotional/mental health, was incredibly relatable. Love…

It is going to take a while to be able to calm myself enough to read the other three books, especially knowing where the stories end. Wow...my mind, my heart, my whole body is completely overcome by this book. It took unconventional routes, breaking predictability, and while I did guess some things before they happened, more often than not this story surprised me with its twists and how the characters reacted, which made me so very happy, so very heartbroken, and really transformed this story into something inexplicably beautiful, painful, and unique. Ben, Tim, and Jace all were incredibly deep and multi-layered characters that grew over time, and often surprised me with their actions. They made me soar in happiness (Jace and his trips and understanding and love; Ben with his process of growing up and his bravery and choices; Tim changing over the years and slowly becoming the man he needed to be but keeping his love for and sights set on Ben), they pissed me off (I can't go into detail without spoilers), they broke my heart into sand-fine pieces, and they forced me to understand and accept all of the twists and turns in their lives. They all feel so real that I almost believe that they must be out there in the world. This is one of those rare books that has so much power in it, it makes you stop and sit back and think about life. As much as I want to rail against things that happened at the end, get mad and yell "why" and find a way to change the events, everything played…

"Life isn't meant to be hidden away and life is too short for shame." That's the way Ben has tried to live his life. He's openly gay in his high school, and can't wait to finish up and move out into the real world. Away from the piss ant Texas town where the only boys who want to have anything to do with him are in it for sex only, and don't know him in the light of day. When he sees a new boy around during his summer break, he makes it his mission to find out who he is. He doesn't recognize him and begins stalking him. Well, following him around at least. Discovers he is a new student at the high school and runs with the jock crowd. After a run in with the boy - literally - he helps him, Tim, home and discovers he's home alone for two weeks while Tim's parents are traveling. When Tim's sprain sidelines him from school and driving, Ben worms his way into helping out. And soon falls for the boy. only to have his interest returned. But Tim isn't willing to admit to being gay, or really even bi. That leaves Ben in a moral dilemma - stay true to his principles or be Tim's dirty little secret. When circumstances force the boys closer to being out, Tim and Ben find themselves at a crossroads. And Tim chooses. Over the next decade, the two move from lovers to enemies to reluctant friends, with huge gaps of time in between. The course of love never runs smoothly, but will these two find their way back to each other? Will Tim ever find the strength to be true to himself? And…