Never Been Kissed💋
by Timothy Janovsky
Pub Date- 5/3/22 – Happy Pub Day!
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This book was so much more than I realized! Wren has never been kissed and he’s just about to graduate from college. College is the time where you have all your firsts but he is still trying to find where he is comfortable identifying. And he’s had 4 almost kisses so when they are celebrating and had way too many drinks and he is about to go to bed, he looks back at his drafts of written emails to these almost kisses through the years seems like a great time to hit send on all of them.

Well one of them wrote back. Even though he’s mortified and he finds out he has to work his usual summer job with him.

This story was so cute but also brought up so many ideas that make me angry about our culture. That there are different time lines for lgbtq and straight relationships cause unless you have an awesome inclusive family you are on your own trying to find resources and figuring out who you are and where you fit if you aren’t in the cis bucket before you even can start to meet a compatible partner. ✨What if we just raised humans with all the possibilities and showed them all ways to live without shoving them into a label and assimilating them? Can I live there? I’m sure we would find some way to ruin it.✨

They are trying to save their drive-in which is their summer job and also, trying to film a formerly panned/blacklisted movie where the director was driven from Hollywood cause the rumors about her sexual orientation, #oldhollywood 

Getting to experience Wren discover new terms like Demisexual and research stories and feeling that pieces were falling into place was beautiful. 

Read if you like:
💋 Second chance at romance now that they are both in the same place in their journey
🎬 Cinema talk and drive-ins
💋 Sassy elderly female directors

Thank you @sourcebookscasa and @netgalley for the e-ARC for my honest and voluntary review.

❓ Do you look for certain types of rep in books? 

I try to be more diverse but end up picking bright pretty covers, like this one!

Synopsis:

Dear (never-been-quite-over-you) Crush,
It’s been a few years since we were together, but I can’t stop thinking about the time we almost…

Wren Roland has never been kissed, but he wants that movie-perfect ending more than anything. Feeling nostalgic on the eve of his birthday, he sends emails to all the boys he (ahem) loved before he came out. Morning brings the inevitable Oh God What Did I Do?, but he brushes that panic aside. Why stress about it? None of his could-have-beens are actually going to read the emails, much less respond. Right?

Enter Derick Haverford, Wren’s #1 pre-coming-out-crush and his drive-in theater’s new social media intern. Everyone claims he’s coasting on cinematic good looks and his father’s connections, but Wren has always known there’s much more to Derick than meets the eye. Too bad he doesn’t feel the same way about the infamous almost-kiss that once rocked Wren’s world.

Whatever. Wren’s no longer a closeted teenager; he can survive this. But as their hazy summer becomes consumed with a special project that may just save the struggling drive-in for good, Wren and Derick are drawn ever-closer…and maybe, finally, Wren’s dream of a perfect-kiss-before-the-credits is within reach.

A feel-good summer LGBTQIA+ New Adult RomCom, perfect for fans of Red White & Royal Blue, Boyfriend Material, and What If It’s Us.