Secret Admirer is the story of Ace, a college student, and Benji, also a college student but also Ace’s best friend’s little brother. This is told in first person from both Ace and Benji’s povs.



First the cover. I really like it. Something about the flowery background that isn’t typical for M/M stories attracts the attention. Also, the cover model could fit Ace, but for some reason I keep thinking he’s got dark hair.

About the plot. The blurb isn’t quite right. The blurb makes it sound like giving notes to Benji is something Ace has been pining to do for a long time, where that is not the case. For some clarification, Benji is going to the same college as Ace. Benji’s brother Jeremy was supposed to be going to the same college and be Benji’s support system but Jeremy got an internship and left, which meant leaving Ace in charge of looking after Benji. Benji has had a crush on Ace forever. Ace first gives a secret admirer note to Benji to help him through a date that stood him up. After that it awoke feelings in Ace. The notes were cute with Benji trying to figure out who the admirer was. What I didn’t like was that every, single, time the povs changed, the author had the character rehash how they weren’t worthy of the other character’s attention/love or ‘how could someone as wonderful as he was ever like/fall in love with me?’ It truly drove me crazy. Over and over the same conversation going on in the characters’ heads. It slowed the story down and the rehash made it boring because it was mentioned every time there was a pov change. If those monologues were removed to maybe only two-three times in the story instead, the book would lose about a quarter of its pages. The monotonous replay of unworthiness is what made this story seem too long for me. If they were removed, the pace would have picked up and the plot, and characters, made more interesting. The monologue was useless filler.

The characters. I liked Ace. Yes, he was conflicted and even though he said later disappointing Jeremy by dating Benji, when Jeremy had helped him so much, wasn’t a factor, it probably was. Also, Ace was conflicted about realizing he wasn’t actually straight and wasn’t sure how to tell Benji about his feelings because Ace had his own insecurities, which readers don’t find out about until almost the end. Benji didn’t think Ace would ever see him as anyone other than Jeremy’s little brother. Also, Benji was insecure about himself which caused problems. There was a lot of erroneous mind-reading by each character about what the motives of the other person was. I thought Benji was rather immature and clingy. He wanted to always be the center of Ace’s attention. It was more what Ace could do for him rather than what he could do for Ace. I didn’t particularly care for Benji as a character. By the end though, the author conveyed the love between Ace and Benji enough that I could believe in them as a couple.

Because I really liked the cover of the story, I also thought I’d really like the story which wasn’t so. It’s cute and fluffy, but there is way too much internal monologue about why Ace and Benji each think they are unworthy to be liked or loved. This repetitive monologue drags down the pace as it’s rehashed over and over. For this reason, I give Secret Admirer, 3 Stars.

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Cute.
College romance.
Frat house.
Falling for best friend's younger brother.
Friends to lovers.
Pining for older brother's best friend.
Just want to see him smile.
Bi-curious MC.
Virgin MC
Gay Virgin MC
No angst.
Big misunderstanding (It's a secret admirer story of course there's a big misunderstanding.)


( )

Cute.
College romance.
Frat house.
Falling for best friend's younger brother.
Friends to lovers.
Pining for older brother's best friend.
Just want to see him smile.
Bi-curious MC.
Virgin MC
Gay Virgin MC
No angst.
Big misunderstanding (It's a secret admirer story of course there's a big misunderstanding.)


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