ago, a very intoxicated Martin nearly died in the woods outside Everlasting, and a beautiful creature saved him, although Martins done his best to forget it.
He spends his time in a haze of weed as he avoids his emotionally abusive motherand the way he feels about men.
Martin is already a weirdo in his isolated small town he doesnt need a sexuality crisis too, Hes a mess, but someoneor somethingalways seems to take care of him, usually a tall, sarcastic deputy by the name of Ian Forrester.
No one knows much about Ian, which is how he and his family prefer it, Ian has resigned himself to a lonely life keeping his secrets and guarding his forest, Its safe to dream of Martin, because Martin never remembers Ian helping him, Besides, Martin barely speaks to Ian, so nothing can ever grow between them, Right
But with the dragonsand the magicback in Everlasting, suddenly anything seems possible, even a happily ever after for two men who never expected one.
Fits slots. A book from a nonhuman perspective of sitelinkmy book challenge Jeez, this story was terrible! Personally way to long and developed so badly it was boring.
I disliked Martin, sure he was shy and barely spoke if he wasn't drunk or high, but come on, his behavior was to much.
His mental state was omg, sure I could pity his ass, but the way he was portraited was horrible.
Sure Ian was a "Being", but he could have been way more developed and presented than he was, So no this story wasn't good, just bearable, too depressing at the moment, will try again at another time Another book, another bad cover, Let me start by saying that there is no green character in this book, I know the cover gives you the impression that some hot green guy with abs of steel is going to fall for one of the Weasley brothers, but that isn't the deal.
Two normal guys. Well, not exactly normal considering I spent most of the book thinking that one of the guys was a treeshifter.
Like, why haven't we gotten plantshifters going yet It needs to be a thing, If I met a guy who told me he could shift into a rutabaga, I would be intrigued, I mean, I'm not even that sure of what a rutabaga is,
Oh snap. You know how they say never google something unless you're willing to find out what you didn't want to know Well, apparently a rutabaga originated as a cross between a cabbage and a turnip.
Fuck me! Who took two terrible vegetables and decided we needed a third one that was a combination of the them This was like the antiReese's situation.
This was a real commercial, and I'm old enough to remember it, Okay, I was young. Young enough not to question why some dumbass is walking around eating an open jar of peanut butter and had no utensils of any kind.
Still chocolate and peanut butter, Groundbreaking. Cabbage and Turnip I'm calling the police,
Okay, I got a lot offtrack there,
Anyway.
So this book is about a notatreeshifter cop and a total stoner barista who fall in love, It takes quite a while because stoner barista has no idea that he's bisexual, And, he keeps getting wasted to try and not think about it, To make it all worse, he is one
of those drunkdialer kind of people, You know, the kind who say shit that should never be said, Overshare. Call their ex's. Cry. It's that secondhand cringey embarrassment stuff,
So, counting the cover, and the title because "His Mossy Boy" Come on, You're not even trying anymore, . . this book has a lot of cringe, But still .
It's good. There are a lot of serious issues dealt with in all of the craziness, There is coming out, homophobia, transphobia, verbal abuse, selfmedicating, Stuff like that. And, it's all done very well, The book never comes across as preachy, but navigates through all of these serious issues while also feeling like a sweet love story.
I can understand how some people may not be able to deal with the length of this book, It had a tendency to be repetitive, but after reading it for a while I really understood the sort of melancholy that persisted throughout this book.
Martin had a beautiful, loving soul that was seemingly irreparably damaged by his horrible and mentally abusive mother.
She completely emasculated him and then mocked him for not being a man among other things,
His friends wanted to help him and cherish him but he didn't feel deserving, so he remained aloof but still felt protective of them.
Then came along Ian Forrester who was was sarcastic and tried to blend in order for his secrets not get out.
He wanted friends but also knew that he couldn't get too close to them yet he was also protective of those he cared about and he felt were worthy of protecting.
Martin and Ian had history were Ian would always be helping Martin when Martin was too high or drunk to get home safely.
Martin was so lonely and used alcohol or weed to escape,
It took those two forever to get together and some point I was surprised they could even though I knew there would be an HEA.
With the issues that both had it seemed at odds to how they felt about each other, Ian couldn't be with someone and Martin was battling with his sexuality for most of the book because of his mother.
They were both so timid with each other and that was the theme for most of the book as well.
There was other stuff going on with Zarrin and Joe trying to figure out how to get the land and the town to mesh with Zarrin so he could be it's caretaker.
Ian is intrinsic in this but no one knows,
For me it was well done and I felt like understood the flow although it felt like it was dragging at points but it tended to showcase the whole feel of the book.
The ending was sweet but I would really love to revisit Azar and Bernard to see if they work themselves out at some point.
Felt like it took me forever to finish it, Not as captivating as others I have read in these series,/:
While adorably cute also angsty to the max, As in Amy Lane can learn something from this angsty,
/
HOW WAS I NOT AWARE THIS HAPPENED! Obviously I need to read this immediately.
So I'm gonna be honest: I bought this bookbecause Amazon kept recommending it to me and the title made me hyenalaugh every time I saw it.
The McElroy brothers' verbal tics have infested my household, so we call everything 'boys,' and "His Mossy Boy" took on mythic status in our house.
I had to read it,
My biggest issue with the book, by far, was that I didn't feel that Martin's substance abuse was treated appropriately.
He's clearly an alcoholic and is very reliant on weed, and it felt like his addiction came and went as it was convenient for story/angst purposes and wasn't fully dealt with.
He kind of just stops drinking toward the end of the book, with no fanfare, and that's that, It felt glossed over.
In general, the book felt very slow, especially at the start, It often took a long time for it to get from Point A to Point B, and sometimes I started to lose patience with it.
I found Martin's arc particularly slow and frustrating at times, I felt for him and appreciated seeing him wrestle with his anxiety and the trauma of his relationship with his mother, but there was also a certain point where I eventually lost patience with all the backandforthing on his feelings for Ian.
My last major problem was that I started with the eighth book in a series with absolutely no idea of what happened previously, which is on me.
Cooper doesn't ease you in, presumably assuming that you've read previous books which isfair, so I didn't have a great sense of what the town was like or what the other characters looked like, and I was particularly bewildered by Plot and by the dragons.
And speaking of the plot,
But I rated this book at three, and it's because I really loved the characters and the character work that was done.
For a book set in a world with dragons, forest spirits, elves, fairies, and magic, a lot of the dialogue "my Mossy Boy" aside certainly memorable but possibly one of my least favorite romancenovel epithets felt natural and true to life in a way that I love and that isn't always characteristic of random romance novels that I find on Amazon.
Shit can be clunky and fake, This wasn't.
Forrester and Martin were really interesting too especially Forrester, I loved Forrester. I felt like I hadn't seen a character like him in romance before, and that's setting aside the caretaker/forest spirit part.
He's sarcastic and rude to people, but with a dry sense of humor that had me in stitches he's reliable and goodhearted and mushy on the inside but also kind of a dick, but not in the alphamale, dickmeasuring awful way that I've become resigned to in romance novels.
Forrester's also such an incredible softy for Martin, and I loved that he doesn't try to hide that and loved their dynamic in moments when Martin was beginning to pull his shit together.
They were very funny, and I loved them ribbing each other, I also appreciated how thoughtful and careful the romance was, As someone who usually rolls their eyes and skips sex scenes, I read them all in this book, because they were lovely and organic, and I felt like they were actually furthering the relationship.
They didn't feel rote or forced or formulaic, And the consent!!! There's a moment where Martin starts to say "Stop saving me" but Forrester hears "Stop" and immediately comes to a screeching halt, which is always, like, the sexiest thing to me.
"Ian wanted, but he could wait" was a narrative line during one scene, and it just sums up a lot of the book so well.
As for Martin, I loved that his talent was homemaking and making people comfortable, I honestly wanted even more of it I felt a little cheated that we didn't get to see him making over Ian's cabin.
I wanted more macrame and knitting and cooking! I also really appreciated that the book remembered that he's bi and didn't take the opportunity to dump on women now that Martin's with a man that he still thought about the way that a woman's hipbones curved.
I really enjoyed the whole supporting cast, I hate reading romance novels where the only significant person in each character's life is the love interest, and that's so not the case here! Joe, Jessie, and Schmitty were especially lovely friends, and I appreciated everything the whole supporting cast brought to the table.
It really felt like there was a whole community in the background, I love stories where two lonely people come together and then realize that maybe they weren't so alone all along, or that they don't have to be going forward sure, Forrester and Martin found each other, but they also ended the book with a bunch of really meaningful friendships, and that made me super happy.
Also, in general, the book made me laugh a lot, which I wasn't expecting at all, Forrester's dry, bland comments and faces cracked me up, and Martin was hilarious when he wasn't spiraling, and I found Zarrin wildly confusing for a long time, as someone who hadn't read earlier books, but he was making me laugh by the end there's a moment where he does finger guns at Forrester, but clearly doesn't understand the context of when to actually use them, that had me howling.
It was a long read, and though it started off very slow and I didn't feel fully satisfied by the ending or the treatment of Martin's addiction, by the end, I have to admit I was a little sad to finish it.
.