Off Campus

Bend or Break, Book 1

By: Amy Jo Cousins

Narrated by: Cooper North

Everyone's got secrets. Some are just harder to hide.

With his father's Ponzi scheme assets frozen, Tom Worthington believes finishing college is impossible unless he can pay his own way. After months of sleeping in his car and gypsy cabbing for cash, he's ready to do just that. But his new older-student housing comes with an unapologetically gay roommate. Tom doesn't ask why Reese Anders has been separated from the rest of the student population. He's just happy to be sleeping in a bed.

Reese isn't about to share his brutal story with his gruff new roommate. You've seen one homophobic jock, you've seen 'em all. He plans to drag every twink on campus into his bed until Tom moves out. But soon it becomes clear Tom isn't budging. Tom isn't going to let some late-night sex noise scare him off, especially when it's turning him on. But he doesn't want any drama either. He'll keep his hands, if not his eyes, to himself.

Boundaries have a way of blurring when you start sharing truths, though. And if Tom and Reese cross too many lines, they may need to find out just how far they can bend before they break.

Warning: This book contains cranky roommates who vacillate between lashing out and licking, some male-male voyeurism, emotional baggage that neither guy wants to unpack, and the definitive proof that sound carries in college housing.

©2014 Amy Jo Cousins (P)2016 Insatiable Press

Great Story , BUT

Is there a word requirement ?? Holy cow ! - there’s a whole paragraph describing why Tom is wearing a dress shirt to drive (halfway through the book) but his 6/8 weeks self improvement gets less than a chapter . Also the writer relies TOO much on back telling . Instead of starting at the beginning of an event she brings us in at the end and THEN tells what happened .
wish I had bought the book instead of the audio so I could skim. The narrator was great ! And the story was interesting but Christ! more than once I forgot what the MC’s conversation was about because I had to hear another 10 minute internal monologue

Good story, but too long

The premise of the story was fantastic. Two characters who have both experienced trauma in their own ways are thrown together and forced to share a dorm room. Reese is an out and proud gay man who is expecting to have a room to himself. Tom, who has experienced a complete upheaval in his life thanks to his con artist father, is coming back to school and trying to start his life over. The story itself of these two trying to overcome adversity, becoming friends, and then taking their relationship to the next level is a great premise. However, it just kept going on and on and I felt like the author kept rehashing and retelling the story, and not even from differing angles. After a while I kind of just tuned it out and if I felt like I missed even a small plot point, I rewound and listen to that point over again. Otherwise the last six chapters are completely unnecessary. It could have been resolved much sooner and much more succinctly. It may be that she just tried to make the entire book last over a school year.
I really enjoyed the supporting cast of characters including Cash and Steph, the two best friends of our main characters. They were a lot of fun. The narration was fine. No complaints.

it was fine

the book was good, I liked the characters and the time they were given to develop, I really felt connected to them. but if you're going to give this a sizzling on the ratings scale it needs more than a bunch of hand/blow jobs there was like 1 legit sex scene. I've listened to books that were WAY more graphic than this, Nicholas Bella now his books are pretty sizzling, this was just a cute soft love story.

Great narration and compelling story

Tom has been homeless, living in his car, and driving a taxi to afford school. He shows up to his off-campus housing broke, exhausted, and relieved to have a place to sleep. Unfortunately he has an irate roommate. Reese was promised a single after violence ( trigger warning for sexual abuse) in his dorm last year. He bring a series of hook-ups back to their room to scare Tom away. Tom has no place to go and is more turned on by Reese's exploits than Reese knows. This is not a light fluffy book. Both guys are dealing with their own issues and being together just complicates things. M/M HEA/HFN

Great story. Great narration.

This wasn't my usual sort of read. I tend to prefer a bit more mystery and suspense in my reads, but this book was well constructed and packed full of intense emotions.

The narrator also did an excellent job with the characters.