Home Skillet: Culinary Kings Book 1, Cate Ashwood

When the one you're still hopelessly in love with is the one that got away and they turns to you when their life is falling apart, what should you do?  The logical answer is to set appropriate emotional boundaries and be there for them but to keep your distance.  But I know of no one who would be logical in this instance.  There's always that part of you that hopes that this time you'll be appreciated, this time they'll truly see, this time...  And yet all the hoping in the world is just bound to get you more heartache and confusion.

Ben and Jimmy are in this terribly dysfunctional relationship that masquerades as friendship.  Jimmy gave up more than just a best friend when he chose to live his life in Manhattan the way he had and almost to the very end of the story I found him utterly selfish.  There's no nice way to call him a user and I'm sure so many people will read this story and see him as a scared man, an emotionally fragile man who just had his dreams of a future crushed and so he turns to the one person he could count on.  What they're not seeing is that Jimmy has only ever been protective of was himself.

Yes, he had the horrible misfortune of having homophobic parents.  My issue, though, isn't with his sexuality, coming out, or even his choice to marry a woman.  My issue is that Jimmy uses Ben under the guise of teenage hormones and familiarity, uses Jenna for her connections and wealth, and uses Ben again when his life goes to shit.  His patterns of behavior are disappointing and reprehensible.  I also wished that he did more to convince Ben of his feelings, did a lot of groveling, and voiced his sudden realization.  Ben may not have needed that, but I certainly did.

There is good to him.  I do like that when he finally wises up and opens his eyes to everything he gave up when he dumped Ben he sees just how amazing Ben is and focuses on encouraging him, supporting him, and becomes unwilling to deny what they're building.  His words to Ben at the end with his surprise were heartfelt and honest.  I enjoy that he finally understands how essential Ben is to a happy, fulfilling life.  He was lucky that the woman he married was Jenna because, while we have our doubts about her in the beginning, her strength and compassion later on showed us that he does actually have good taste in friends.

Ben was probably awesome.  And I did like him quite a bit more than Jimmy.  But most of the story shows him being a self-deprecating man in love with his former best friend and just can't get over it.  I'm not shaming a decade-long unrequited love situation.  I'm just expressing disappointment in Ben's choice to be a pushover.  His choice to help his family instead of continue with school got him stuck in a rut that he couldn't see a way out of.  He slowly sucked the life out of his own soul and the only good part of him is tied to the one man he should move on from.  It's an unfortunate situation that ultimately ends well but is still sad to read before he gets his happiness.

So it's clear that I have some frustrations and disappointments with the characters.  Truth.  I also didn't really enjoy that the setting felt more like a place-holder and not really used to their advantage.  The story was slow to move to anything really great between them and yet the entire thing felt rushed.  Lots of surface stops and a whole heaping amount of angsty inner dialogue.  The steam, however, once they got it on, was quite nice.  I adored the proposal situation and thought it fit the men and the story.  And even though my review seems terribly negative, which it kind of is, I didn't hate the book.  I think this suffered from a slightly inattentive group of or individual proofreader that got caught up in what they hoped for the book rather than what was on the page.

*$2.99 on Amazon!