Review || Love Lessons by Heidi Cullinan

Title: Love Lessons

Author: Heidi Cullinan

Publisher: Samhain Publishing

Published: October 1st 2013

Format: Ebook

Genre: New Adult, LGBTQ,

Series: Love Lessons #1
Rating: ★★★
Find on: Goodreads
Where to buy: Amazon (UK), Book Depository

Summary:

Love doesn’t come with a syllabus.

Kelly Davidson has waited what seems like forever to graduate high school and get out of his small-minded, small town. But when he arrives at Hope University, he quickly realizes finding his Prince Charming isn’t so easy. Everyone here is already out. In fact, Kelly could be the only virgin on campus.

Worst of all, he’s landed the charming, handsome, gay campus Casanova as a roommate, whose bed might as well be equipped with a revolving door.

Walter Lucas doesn’t believe in storybook love. Everyone is better off having as much fun as possible with as many people as possible…except his shy, sad little sack of a roommate is seriously screwing up his world view.

As Walter sets out to lure Kelly out of his shell, staying just friends is harder than he anticipated. He discovers love is a crash course in determination. To make the grade, he’ll have to finally show up for class…and overcome his own private fear that love was never meant to last.

Warning: This story contains lingering glances, milder than usual sexual content for this author, and a steamy dance-floor kiss. Story has no dairy or egg content, but may contain almonds.

Thoughts:

I picked this book up on a whim. I was just browsing around Goodreads, I saw this, and I bought it immediately. And I'm glad I did, because I enjoyed the story.

The story takes place at a smaller college named Hope, located somewhere in the outskirts of Chicago (I'm pretty sure, it's somewhere near Chicago). We also see the hometowns of both the main characters. The places we see aren't really one of the main focus points, but there is a special kind of atmosphere at the college. We do get a feeling of what it's like to be at hope, but the place does not become a character in it self, which is quite okay with me.

“Sometimes the ones we love are like butterflies, flitting all over, and we have to sit and wait patiently for them to land. Sometimes they never do, and that’s a risk we take. But sometimes what they need most is to see us sitting still, patient, waiting. To understand that we’re going to be there no matter what, that we’re the ones who are always sitting there waiting, loyal, loving. Sometimes that’s more powerful than any words.” 

In the story we meet Walter Lucas - the Campus Casanova. He is the typical romance novel bad boy, who doesn't answer to anyone but himself. I didn't exactly love Walter. He wasn't a bad character, I just didn't fall in love with him. Some of his actions annoyed me from time to time, and there were a couple of times where I felt like punching him. He's charming, sure, but sometimes the charming crosses the line over to cocky, and that's just not attractive.

Then we have Kelly Davidson - the sweet, innocent, freshman. He is allergic to a ton of things, hence him having to live in a single dorm - It's the only place he can hook up an AC, and thereby getting clean air. Kelly is a good guy, and I really adored him. He believes in the Disney romances, and he wants to find his own prince on the white horse. Kelly wants to fall in love, and live the happily ever after - However, after a few weeks at college, he begins to doubt that it's possible. 

I really liked the relationship between Walter and Kelly. It was kind of the typical opposites attract type of relationship, but I thought it worked out pretty well in this book. Kelly and Walter somehow just click, even with the different goals in life, they somehow fit together like peas in a pod, and I enjoyed reading about their adventures together.

Even though we get a lot of information about the two main characters, and we see the story from both points of views, I still didn't feel like I got to know them. There were times where I wasn't actually sure who's POV was the present one, because at some points they do melt together just a bit. Their personalities, to some extend, and some of their personal stand points changes throughout the story, but they did that a little too quickly for my taste.

“There’s no magic ruler by which we’re all judged and weighed, not in this life. If you wait for someone to tell you it’s time to grow up, you’ll wait forever. Some people, quite happily, do just that. They don’t do anything until they’re forced to by circumstance” 

I really liked the plot and the premise of the story, however, the pacing of the book was way too slow for my taste. About half way through the story, the pacing seemed to just slow down so much, and nothing seemed to happen. I was missing a proper climax (well, there were climaxes, just not the one I was looking for), and that again made the story drag a bit. Something else is, that I would liked to have seen a little more conflicts in the story - not to say that there weren't any, but I'm the kind of person who loves reading about big conflicts, and I was missing those a little bit. However, despite all that, it was still a sweet story, and it certainly did have it's sweet moments.

All in all, this was a enjoyable read, even though it was a little slow. I would recommend this for people who like new adult and the whole opposites attract type of relationships.