Review: Better than the last book in this series.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 05 11, 2014
K.A. Mitchell is one of my go to authors in the genre, one of the first authors I really enjoyed.  But I have been disappointed by this series.  I love Bad Boyfriends buy I didn't really enjoy either Bad Company and Bad Attitude.  Mostly I just never connected with the misunderstood rich kid story in both those books.  Despite this I was looking forward to this book and while it's not perfect, It's much better than Bad Attitude but not as good as Bad Boyfriends.What I liked about this book is that there are themes to this book beyond the basic love story, the problem of gay homeless teens.  Mitchell has clearly done some thinking, and possibly research about this topic and it shows in the book.  Silver isn't someone I can entirely relate to but he is believable.  This book is most told in Silver's viewpoint unlike the rest of the books in the series, so we don't really get to know Zeb in the same way as he the rest of the characters in the series. It's hard to really get a feel for Zeb's motivations.  But I do love how we see all the different characters from the previous books, and how they end up interacting together.  I find it refreshing that they aren't all one big happy family.If this book wasn't by a favorite author I would probably not have even read it because it deals with two tropes I tend to stay away from.  And underage relationship and the haven't seen you in X years but I'm still in love with you trope.  But neither of these are problems I have with the book.  I think she handles  both of these well.  I don't feel squicky about Silver & Zeb's past relationship.  Maybe because the underage part of the story is just the back story, and partly because it's mostly a 17 yrs old & 22 year old and Silver (Jordan then) intentionally deceived Zeb.  Neither Silver nor Zed had their head screwed on then that's not unusual for teenagers,  and It makes for good conflict at the begging of the story.  And it's only been 3 years, and it's not like either of them were pinning for each other.What mostly bothered me are details, like I've seen in K.A. Mitchel's books before.  I can't figure out why Silver really needed to confront his father to get his documents,  the authors logic doesn't make sense.  Including that Silvers drivers license would still be valid.  There are a lot of little details like Zed gets a half day off for "graduation" practice weeks before the school  year is over.  Or that it seems to be high summer, and then we find out his court date is set for June and then later July.  And while most of the ending was sweet, and everyone gets their happily ever after including a "goal" for what they want to do in life.  I found ending was a bit too abrupt, particularly Zeb quitting his summer job half way through the summer.But the big issue I don't like is how casual Mitchell is about Silver's HIV diagnosis.  It's made to be a big deal at the beginning, but by the end of the book it's as if it's a complete non issue.  While Zeb gets momentary upset by it, none of the other characters seem to make it out to be much of a big deal.  And it's as if the HIV issue has been reduced to take one pill a day, and practice safe sex.