Review: Taking You Home by Cooper Davis

I picked up this book for two reasons.  Firstly it had been recommended to me after my post on cross-dressing heroes over at Brief Encounters Reviews and secondly, because I'd read the previous book, Boys of Summer and loved it.

This story takes place a few weeks after the end of Boys of Summer.  Hunter, our first person narrator, has proposed to his lover Maxwell and they intend to get married in the spring.  The story then takes us on that journey of about six months leading up to their wedding as the men deal with Maxwell's family and share their secrets with each other.

As I said, I really liked Boys of Summer.  It's much shorter than this book (about half the length) and the deep romanticism of that novella worked well in the shorter format.  In Taking You Home, that romanticism is still there in the writing as Hunter reminds us again and again why he loves Maxwell.  It's in everything about him: His looks; personality; his sexy body; the way that he knows and accepts Hunter.  The story is structured in such as way that the reader is led through a series of either events or short incidental scenes showing aspects of their lives together, and each scene or event concludes with Hunter reiterating his love for Maxwell, or by growing to love him even more.  I have to admit that after a while this became a bit too cloying for me and I had to put the book down and 'rest' for a while.  It's a shame really, because this type of story worked well as a novella but just didn't translate as well into the longer format - at least not for me who has a very short fuse when it comes to overly sweet stories.  Other readers who love sweetly romantic stories will probably lap this up.

One aspect I was very interested in was the cross dressing theme.  In the end this too was a little disappointing.  Maxwell reveals to Hunter that he likes dressing as a woman, and Hunter really liked it when Maxwell became Maxine.  I thought more would be made of this, but apart from one evening and a short scene later in the book it wasn't made that big a deal of and was used more to show how much Hunter loved and accepted Maxwell, than any real understanding of why Maxwell would want to dress as Maxine, other than as a role play kink.  I was also slightly uncomfortable at the suggestion that Maxine tapped into Hunter's bisexuality and that he would somehow 'need' Maxine to make the relationship with Maxwell work overall.  In the end, I wondered why such a theme would have introduced if it wasn't then going to be made more integral to the story.

Despite my reservations about the cross dressing theme and the fact that the book pushed my 'too sweet' buttons from time to time, this was still a good romantic read.  The heroes work well together, talking through their problems in a mature fashion and supporting each other in difficult times.  Hunter is a very sympathetic narrator and I was so caught up in the story that I didn't even notice it was written in the present tense until about a third of the way through the book - which is very unusual because I often find present tense stories hard to get into at first.  The writing is quite beautiful with a lyricism that appealed to me and this was most apparent in the sex scenes which as you may imagine were very tender as well as steamy, and in the scenes where Hunter is amazed at how beautiful his husband-to-be is.

Another thing that worked well in the book is the Gay For You theme.  The scene where Hunter is trying to explain his attraction for Maxwell to Maxwell's sister really hit the nail on the head for me as to why this theme works so well:

“I was always straight. I had plenty of girlfriends over the years, slept with my share of women, and I won’t lie and say I didn’t enjoy it. But when I met your brother…” I hesitate, trying to figure out how to explain it. “He changed me. Suddenly something that I’d never thought about just had me in its grip. Maybe it had always been just below the surface, I don’t really know.”

She stares at me, her jaw actually dropping. Mine is dropping, too, because I seriously can’t believe I just opened up to her like that. Then those big brown eyes get a little wider, and she says, “Oh my god. You fell in love with him, didn’t you?”

This idea is reinforced throughout the book, especially as Hunter sometimes struggles with the idea of being bisexual.  This book is one of the most open and honest GFY books I've read, one which deals sensitively and accurately with the theme whilst also allowing me to understand Hunter's feelings exactly.

So once again I'm struggling with how to grade this book.  Really it falls slap bang in the middle of 'Good' and 'Very good'.  The very good grade would be for the writing, characterisation and the handling of the GFY theme; and the good grade for it pushing my 'too sweet' button and for the disappointing use of the cross dressing theme.  Hmmm, I'm going to sit on the fence here and award both grades.  Overall, I would still recommend this book, especially if your sugar threshold is much higher than mine, and if you are in the mood for a well written and deeply romantic novel.

Buy this book HERE.