Despite the Odds by Chris T Kat

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Blurb

Never judge a book by its cover.

Michael Campbell can’t hold a job for more than a few days. He’s lucky his foreman is giving him another chance with the solar panel project at an elementary school in Atlantic City. When he spies a man walking strangely in front of the school, Michael laughs, assuming he’s drunk or high. Little does he realize that Joshua Stone, a teaching assistant, has cerebral palsy, and he’s having a bad muscle control day. Taking a tumble right in front of the handsome construction worker is just his luck.

When Michael learns the truth, he feels bad for his cruel behavior. He offers to give Joshua—and his tricycle, the Racing Rhonda—a lift. Joshua accepts the help, and suddenly there’s a gorgeous man breezing into his life, turning his world upside down. But Michael has more issues than his inability to hold down a job, and neither man is sure if they’ll be able to overcome their fears in order to be together.

Review

In a nutshell, Michael makes fun of (sort-of) Josh, but then finds out he has has cerebral palsy, makes up and they begin dating.

Michael is a sweet guy but has trouble keeping a job (for reasons we find out) and has a fairly low self-esteem but is generally laid back.

Josh really wants to trust Michael but he’s been burned before.

This is a book that could have been a touching and profound story to two men overcoming huge obstacles to be together, but instead was merely a sweet, fairly light-hearted romance.

The issues of Joshua’s disability as well as Michaels are mostly glossed over. The couple become a kind of non-sexual boyfriend then suddenly they move in together and HEA.

I still enjoyed reading this, it was short and sweet, but it felt very superficial and I was disappointed that we didn’t get to delve more deeply into these complex MCs. I was also rather disconcerted by how the sex was handled in that it went from zero to sixty and I think that taking some time to really move the couple through their emotions would have made their coming together more poignant.

I give it a 3 of 5 hearts because the writing was nice, the editing was good and I loved the MCs.