What was missing from Heidi Cullinan’s Love Lessons series? A fake boyfriend romance, so of course that’s what she provided and I soaked up in the third installment Lonely Hearts.
Picking up immediately after Fever Pitch, Cullinan dives right into the story of Elijah, the jaded and toying with the lines of addiction and safe sex roommate of Aaron from the last book, and Baz, life of the party big man on campus, but hiding a soft inside with a heartbreaking backstory.
Whereas the first book in the series, Love Lessons, stands alone, in order for this one to remotely make sense you have to at least read the second book. It’s almost as if she wrote one really long book with two romances (and Walter playing fairy-god-uncle) and then split it in two, which worked for me since I read them back-to-back.
This one was a lot heavier than the last two for good reason: Elijah’s horrible conservative religious parents basically abused him for years and he sold himself to survive; and Baz survived a traumatic hate crime with life-altering injuries and his boyfriend at the time didn’t. Talk about emotional baggage for days, this one had it.
As interesting as the Elijah and Baz dynamic was, Lejla was by far my favorite character. Seeing her come to terms with her trans identity and seeing Elijah come out of his shell and stepping away from the selfishness he needed to have to survive was tear-inducing. I liked that Cullinan had her characters go through what almost anyone would when it comes to meeting someone who’s gender identity is evolving/changing/aligning externally to match their internal identity.
It was making Baz crazy not knowing what name or pronoun to assign. Why the hell it mattered, he didn’t know. It didn’t matter. Was he going to treat the person in front of him any different as a Lewis instead of a Lejla, or vice versa? No, but—well, that was the thing, wasn’t it? It didn’t matter, except it really fucking did.
Gender was such a fuckjob. What made Elijah attractive to Baz? Why was Mina not on the menu? He refused to believe it was her tits. It must be something else. Pheromones. Or maybe it was all genderfuck. Born naked, and the rest is drag, like RuPaul said. Maybe they were all warped by details. Maybe orientation and gender and even attraction were a thousand fold more complicated than anybody wanted to admit. (180)
And you can bet I was actually crying when Lelja got her chance to be on stage with the music groups at the end of the novel!
The other part that really got me in this novel and had me tearing up way more than I’m comfortable admitting to strangers on the internet, was the evolution of Elijah and Baz as individuals. Neither of them wanted to love someone else. Not only did they feel they didn’t deserve it, but they both felt if they loved someone else either they’d die or the person they loved would die and either one would be a lot worse off than they were to start.
As he snuggled deeper into the delicious cocoon of their bed, Elijah made himself acknowledge how hard Baz had pursued him not only tonight but also every other time Elijah had tried to withdraw. Tonight he’d found Elijah when everyone else kept walking right past him—Baz seemed to zero in, as if he’d known exactly where to look. He with the shit vision. Baz had found him, swept him away in his moving castle and talked him into sanity. Confessed that he loved Elijah, loved taking care of him. Baz wasn’t a little bit of affection. He wasn’t a flame like Aaron or Giles or Mina or Lejla. He was a goddamned lighthouse calling Elijah’s moth-eaten soul home. (282)
They’re together pretty much the entire book and their relationship evolves constantly because of external factors ranging from Baz’s overstepping political mother to Elijah’s panic attacks (and probably substance withdrawal), but as they both come to accept their relationships and who they’ve become the book just gets that much better.
Lelja, so wise beyond her years, sums up so much of the book with one throwaway line she says to Elijah as he’s struggling with all the emotions:
Except we’re always our own villains in the end. Which makes them easy to defeat, once we’re ready to admit we were the only ones in our own way. (293)
I was glad Walter and Kelly played parts in this novel too. Walter is a great character and honestly, he could pop in and out of any number of Cullinan’s works and I’d be happy. I do wonder if the ballet dancer and former pro-footballer are another of her stories and if they are, clearly, I’m going to have to seek it out at some point 😀
Recommendation: Read it! This was a wonderful conclusion to the trilogy. It was more of a book two part two because of how intertwined the two stories are, but I’m not holding that against Cullinan. The emotional wallop these last two in the trilogy pack needed to be muted a bit by splitting it in two. I seriously had to take a few days before finishing my next book because I was emotionally wrung out after this series!
Opening Line: “As far as Elijah Prince was concerned, gay weddings could choke on their own cheery goddamned glitter and die.”
Closing Line: “Baz dragged Elijah off his knees and onto his lap. ‘Yes.’ He pressed the flat of his hand over the fluttering organ inside Elijah’s chest. ‘It’s right here.'” (Whited out to avoid spoilers, highlight to read.)
Other Books in Love Lessons
Additional Quotes from Lonely Hearts
“Elijah shrugged, turning away so Damien didn’t see the flush on his cheeks. ‘You can stand down. I’m not looking for a savior.’
‘He is.'” (36)
“Except Baz couldn’t stop thinking about him. It wasn’t simply the sex, either. And of course he wanted to explore finding out if Elijah was as enthusiastic a top as he was a bottom. But it was more that he wanted . . . well, more. More banter. More side eye. More of Elijah regarding him warily, like he didn’t trust Baz at all. Getting all intense and up in Baz’s face.” (43)
“Baz held up a hand. ‘Message received. I’ll stop being a dick.’
‘Well, I wouldn’t go that far. It’s not a good idea to set yourself up for failure. But being tolerable might not be a bad goal.'” (69)
“For heaven’s sake, this isn’t a Jane Austen novel. Don’t start about the money, either. People didn’t give you money so you’d work like a dog and live like a monk. He’s not going to let you spend anything anyway.” (98)
“He was pretty sure he was the cheapest thing in the whole goddamned house.
Baz crouched below the bar for a minute, rooted around, and emerged with a gourmet bag of nuts and two of chips, one with cinnamon and nutmeg and another with some kind of salt scraped from the tears of a nun or something equally whack. Elijah resisted the urge to pour them into his mouth like a heathen, but he did pretty much dive in as soon as Baz had them cracked open.” (111)
“How the fuck did somebody come out as trans, anyway? It wasn’t about who you flirted with on the dance floor or walked down the aisle with. It was about who you fucking were. It wasn’t putting on drag. It was God putting it on you without your consent. Elijah had never understood being trans, had frankly been glad to keep his distance because he had his own shit.” (175)
“Elijah realized the horrible, hollow truth about himself. No matter how many times this happened, he’d keep following Baz into the deep water, a dumb puppy eager to show off his dog paddle.
Every goddamned time, Baz would vanish, leaving Elijah to flounder and ache alone.” (127)
“At first Elijah thought he was writing in his own gay subtext, but pretty quickly he understood he was all but handed the pen and paper to slash Ciel and Sebastian, Sebastian and Grell (a grim reaper who fancied Sebastian) and pretty much anybody else he cared to. The ‘boy’ was technically twelve, but he read as twenty-something. The show writers had a thing for putting him in drag, and during the scene where Sebastian helped Ciel into a corset, it was basically a panel out of yaoi. The lyrics to the opening credits kept talking about kisses and love and moonlight final nights, and they never missed a chance to pose Sebastian as sex on a stick.” (223)
“‘Baz?’
‘Yeah, baby?’
‘I want you to hear what I said.’
Baz opened his mouth to say he’d heard, then realized he hadn’t.
‘Tell me again.’
‘I will be there. For you. And if you don’t phone me every time you bump your ass on DEFCON’s second cousin, I will be very pissed off.’
The cold, hard knot in Baz’s chest warmed and unfurled. ‘Message received.'” (240)
“‘If it’s any consolation, you were glorious.’ Baz stroked Elijah’s hair, smiling. ‘I wish you could find this part of you without substance abuse.’
”Sometimes I think I maybe could, when I’m with you.’
Baz stilled. Something shifted deep in his heart, and he ran a hand down Elijah’s back. ‘Oh yeah?’
Elijah didn’t reply because he’d fallen asleep. Baz held him close, letting the confession ring in his heart, taking him into his dreams.” (244)
“‘You aren’t vomiting anything now.’ Elijah pulled a sarcastic smile. ‘Are you telling me it gets better?’
”No. Wounds are wounds. Shit that happened remains shit that happened. You get better, though. Maybe you’re forever decamped on the Island of Misfit Toys, but you’re better.’ He stroked Elijah’s hair. ‘I’m saying I’m better with you. I should probably be noble and tell you I’ll let you go if it’s what you want, but I’m a spoiled, selfish brat. I’ll follow you, beg you, bribe you to stay. Because you’re the first one to make it to my island. I don’t want to let you leave.’
Elijah melted out of the ugly and into . . . Elijah. ‘You have too many metaphors going. First we were Sid and Nancy, then we were Howl’s Moving Castle, and now we’re Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.'” (277)
“You’re a writer. You process the world through story. I’m not saying this needs to be some kind of soul-baring confessional. I’m saying choose your narrative. It’s not about countering the right-wing bloggers or throwing down with Baz’s family. It’s about telling yourself you’re okay. Not perfect. Okay. That you’re managing. That you have your life under control. Maybe getting a better visual on where your missing pieces are.” (291)
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