An emotional read and overall, very well written. I went through a half a box of Kleenex, to be honest.I'ts difficult to write a story with so much background and history based on extremely painful and heart-wrenching events for the main characters. LA Witt navigates these waters well with a finely honed pen and well-chosen words. Occasionally the angst can be overwhelming, but the story as a whole is told with honesty and realism. Not everything in a romance novel needs to end with a nicely wrapped bow. But that's how life is.I must add that it was an enormous pleasure to read a M/M romance novel devoid of the ubiquitous pablum of really bad similes and metaphors, and the plethora of cheesy lines that seem to populate every book in the genre; overused expressions like "a breath he didn't realize he was holding" or "the water sluiced over his body" as he "carded" his hands through his hair. All of this cheese-ball writing has no place in an LA Witt novel and I'm so glad for that. Her writing is much crisper than her contemporaries.I would submit that Ms. Witt either did extensive research on, or has someone (or two) in her life that suffer from, PTSD, because the nuances of this syndrome were well-written in the story. And finally, Parents who don't accept the "gayness" of their child still exists in the world, and as hard as is it for me to accept that this is true (because I'm not exposed to it myself, and choose not to associate with anyone who would do that), it's a fact of life we need to accept. As someone who has continually sought to find a surrogate family (for completely different reasons than those discussed in this book), I can say with certainty that LA Witt understands this aspect of life as well. I debated whether this should be 2 stars or 3 stars and finally decided on 3. I didn't really like Neil but Jeremy broke my heart. I really felt for Jeremy and can't believe his family would do that to him, a guy who just got back from serving his country. Some people shouldn't have kids, for real.I don't think there was much romance in this book. I also didn't like that the guys hooked up in Neil's parents' house when the mother wasn't keen on her son being gay. That just took something away from the sex scenes for me. This story did get an emotional response from me and that's why the 3 stars.
