Book 793: In the Middle of Somewhere (Middle of Somewhere #1) – Roan Parrish

I’m slowly coming to expect great things from Roan Parrish. Every time I pick up a novel by her I know there’s going to be a decent chunk of it dedicated to emotional turmoil of some sort and another good chunk of it dedicated to really making you feel the setting of the novel. And she did not disappoint with this one.

In the Middle of Somewhere introduces us to Daniel, a PhD candidate looking for his first job as a literature professor who has a chip on his shoulder from a rough upbringing, and Rex, a quiet woodsman with so much love to give and his own burdens to share. They meet when Daniel is in town for an interview and he hits a stray dog and crashes his car. There’s a kiss and longing, but then they both move on because neither knows for sure Daniel is going to take the job.

Well, he does and then of course the dog reintroduces them by tackling Daniel and covering him in kisses. They then have a hot and heavy hookup outside against a tree. I mean woodsman, am I right?

Last night, I had a dream that I walked into the diner and he was working there, only it was one of those old-timey soda shoppes and he was wearing the whole soda jerk getup: white shirt and apron, black bow tie, dorky white hat perched on his perfect head. He made me a delicious-looking milkshake but then refused to give it to me. I know, right? You don’t have to be Freud. (33)

Rex and Daniel start to hang out (read as have sex) more frequently and then they realize they want to date each other, but because they’re men they don’t just talk about it. They do eventually and try to go on an actual date but it goes disastrously wrong. Rex hasn’t shared with Daniel that he has severe dyslexia and Daniel takes him to a foreign film with subtitles, and of course he then relives every conversation they’ve had and beats himself up for not knowing or recognizing. It’s interesting because they do talk about classic literature including: The House of Mirth, The Secret History, Moby Dick, Ethan Frome, In Cold Blood and The Fellowship of the Ring.

Confessions are made and they grow closer together just in time for some family drama which leads to book two, Out of Nowhere, which I’m REALLY intrigued about.

The sex scenes were really well done. Parrish has an interesting approach to them and I’m rarely disappointed. She walks the walk when it comes to verse characters and I appreciate that she writes them from different perspectives like it’s not just the same way when the characters switch positions. This was an interesting scene highlighting a lot of Daniel’s challenges with trusting someone.

It’s a little explicit so click here to read it.

As he slides all the way inside me, I feel heat and fullness and a heartbeat of fear caught in my throat.

He’s so close. I’m in his house and in his bed and he’s inside me and there’s nowhere to go and, just for a second, I panic. My body tightens and Rex groans. I’m breathing a little too fast and his weight is immovable.

But then he opens his eyes and looks at me, and he’s here, right here. This isn’t a fuck in a bathroom stall. It’s not a blowjob in the alley outside the club, or jerking off one of my brothers’ straight friends at work, knowing they’ll come on my stomach and never look me in the eye again.

I squeeze my eyes shut and open them again and he’s still right there, frozen, trembling above me. (102)

 

And the way Parrish writes about falling in love is so magical. She really captures the fragility and hesitancy of the characters. And even if it’s in the middle of a sex scene like above, or when the character finally realizes it, like below, it’s well written and you just feel it in your gut.

I don’t understand the way I feel. It’s no different than yesterday, but everything’s changed. I don’t know what kind of tether love is between us. The man lying next to me . . . all of his . . . stuff. Not belongings, but thoughts, feelings, history. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with it. Am I responsible for it and he for mine? Does love imply a promise of some kind? These are things I feel like I should know, but I just . . . don’t. (357)

I started flagging characters early on who I thought might be in the follow up novels and I was wrong so many times! Not that it’s full of gay/bisexual men, there were just so many red herrings that when I finally saw who the next two were about it was totally obvious (especially after the big reveal!).

Recommendation: Add another one to the tally of Roan Parrish’s beautifully written and engaging stories. They definitely don’t read as fast as many of the other MM Romances I read, but they’re fulfilling, usually pretty low drama, and always leave me smiling and staring wistfully off in the distance. I’m super intrigued about book two, Out of Nowhere, which I kind of guessed at in one pivotal scene but wasn’t confirmed until much later. And book three, Where We Left Off, also sounds like it has potential.

Opening Line: “I toss my bag in the door of my rental car and practically throw myself in after it.”

Closing Line: “And now I can look down at this key anytime I want and see my connection to him. See my way home.”  (Whited out to avoid spoilers, highlight to read.)

Additional Quotes from In the Middle of Somewhere
“It’s really cold so far north, but I crack the window to breathe the sweet smell of fresh air and trees anyway. It’s actually really peaceful out here. Quiet. It isn’t something I’m used to—quiet, I mean. Library-quiet and middle-of-the-night quiet, sure. But in the city there’s always noise. This is a quiet that feels like water and trees and, well, nature, I guess, like the time my parents took us to the Jersey Shore when we were kids and I hid under the boardwalk away from the crowds, listening to the overwhelming sound of the ocean and the creak of docks.” (3)

“Am I actually supposed to follow a total stranger into the woods? In the dark? In the middle of nowhere? In Michigan? I know stereotypes about cannibals who live in the woods and eat unsuspecting tourists are just that: stereotypes. Maybe I’ve watched The Hills Have Eyes one too many times, but still. Isn’t it, like, a statistical fact that most serial killers come from the Midwest?” (6)

“[Ginger:] . . . Besides, you know the stats. I don’t care if it’s the lunch lady, your accountant, or the butch lumberjack; there have got to be homosexuals, even in that godforsaken little slice of Minnesota.
Me: Michigan.
Ginger: Whatever, pumpkin.” (12)

“It’s finally sinking in. I live here now. I live here in this tiny town. Everyone knows each other and I’m a stranger. They’ll want to know me. Know about me. And then maybe they’ll hate me.” (32)

“‘She wrote that one about the guy and the sled, right?’ Rex asks.
‘Ethan Frome, yeah,’ I say. Huh, maybe he wasn’t just asking about the book to be polite.
Rex smiles shyly. ‘I liked that one. It reminded me of here—all that snow, and how isolated it can feel.'” (58)

“‘Oh, they know,’ Rex says sounding amused.
‘Huh?’
‘Oh, yeah. You’re the’—he speaks like he’s quoting—’angry, gay professor from New York City who uses all the ten-dollar words.'” (62)

“All girls like forearms. Every single one. No really, I’ve asked all of us and we all agree. We don’t even agree about whether or not the long arm of the law should be able to reach into our vaginas, but we agree about forearms.” (78)

“Rex drops his pants on the floor next to the bed and crawls on top of me. His legs are powerfully muscled, his thighs twice the size of mine, and his plain white briefs fail to contain his erection. He is, all in all, overwhelming. His size, his heat, the fucking delicious smell of him that’s now mixed with a scent that must be his arousal. I cup his balls through the damp fabric and he growls, shimmying out of his underwear and dragging mine down too.” (99)

“She told that I might think of my background and my unfamiliarity with academic discourses as weaknesses, but that I should, instead, think of them as the greatest tools I had to do innovative, personal, and meaningful work. She told me to trust my perspective, and it was the greatest gift she could have given me.” (168)

“‘After that, she talked about the men like she was teaching me about men in general. You know? A James Dean was someone to watch out for. Beautiful, but he’d steal your heart and drag you down with him. A Robert Mitchum or a Gregory Peck were husband material, but James Dean was for having an affair. The guy she dated when we first got to California was a Humphrey Bogart, she said. Not handsome exactly, but attractive in some way you couldn’t quite put your finger on.’
‘So did you want a James Dean or a Gregory Peck?’
‘Hmm,’ Rex says. ‘I always had a thing for Montgomery Clift. He was the nice guy who got a bad rap. Handsome, but smart too. Maybe even a little bit . . . complicated?’
He runs his thumb over my cheekbone, and I can’t help but wonder if that’s what he sees when he looks at me: complicated. But too complicated?” (191)

“I noticed that this week, when we were talking. When I paid close attention to Rex, it was like I escaped the present. Kind of like I do when I’m reading. It’s so fucked. I started reading and making up stories to escape how shitty things were. Then, that habit made it hard for me to be back in the real world—hard to connect with anyone. Which made me super self-conscious and want to escape. Jesus. Anyway, I’ve decided that if I’m going to escape, it’s better to escape into Rex than into a fantasy world where no one will ever find me.” (285)

“It doesn’t matter that years of studying gender theory have given me the ability to reject the gender binary outright. It doesn’t matter that I understand my negative reaction to being called the girl is due to a whole lot of entrenched cultural misogyny and not my own feelings about women. It doesn’t matter that I love when Rex fucks me, which is, of course, basically what Colin’s accusing me of.
All that matters in this moment is launching myself across the pathetic pressboard coffee table cluttered with beer cans and junk mail, and beating the shit out of Colin, which is what I’m attempting to do when Rex grabs me. At least he let me get in a couple of good punches, but I’m still vibrating with fury.” (310)