Review of Off Campus by Amy Jo Cousins

 Off Campus by Amy Jo Cousins

2.5 stars

With his father’s ponzi scheme assets frozen, Tom Worthington believes finishing college is impossible unless he can pay his own way. After months 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.

Let’s start off by saying how much we like college boys, sign.  And this roommates to lovers romance fits the bill, but gets waylaid with too many other storylines.

Tom is a former rich boy whose father is in prison for essentially embezzlement, although all assets are frozen he is working as a cabbie to finish up school.  Assigned to a new roommate he meets up with Reese, who is none too happy about being assigned this former jock.  They both have secrets in their past, and agree that keeping distance from each other is the best way to co-exist.  But Reese really wants a single room and will do almost anything to get Tom to leave.

Fun idea – right?  But a few things get in the way of making this a great read.  Tom is struggling with letting people help him, and is trying to pay his way through college himself.  However even when teachers want to help find him scholarships he pushes everyone away, almost becoming a hermit.  He has run ins with a few other students, and it causes him to pull back further to himself.  I guess it could be believable, but thinking that Tom really wants to accomplish his degree would he not be looking for help? 

And Reese, we struggled with his character.  Reese was raped a college a year ago, and now brings everyone and anyone home.  Trying to get Tom to move out, he resorts to bringing home twinks, and starts this voyeur thing between Tom and himself.  We lived in Rez and ewww, this turned us off, a roommate having sex 10 feet away, no, nope, no way.  We really expected more the the raped storyline to come through, yes, it explains why Reese always wants control, but I was expecting more.

The story is a long one and the back and forth between Tom and Reese makes it drag.  Tom isn’t sure if he is comfortable being open or out with Reese, he doesn’t want to bring more attention to himself. Reese isn’t sure he wants to be Tom’s dirty little secret.  Back and forth, back and forth.  But, not that they are celibate during this time, nope, these are some horny bunnies.  There is lots of sex in this book, and it was hard in the beginning to see Reese, one of the main characters, sleeping with others.

So all in all, a great idea for a story, but just didn’t pan out for us.  Off Campus felt like a circle of a story that never quite found it’s groove.