Carry the Ocean (Roosevelt, #1)

by Heidi Cullinan

[lessthelonely]

I'm going to be real: I misjudged this book.

I thought it was going to be an insta romance with a very poor description of disabilities. Instead, I got an insta romance with some nice description of disabilities.

In terms of main characters I enjoyed Jeremy's chapters more mostly because Emmett's had a little bit of a flow issue (which was obviously intended because of his autism, yet it still affected me a little bit) but I enjoyed it too as I did enjoy Emmett quite a lot too. This book is full of heartfelt moments regarding disabilities, especially with Jeremy's family and their inability to deal with Jeremy's depression. My main problems with this book arise from the way the romance is intertwined with the book's main plot issue: the main characters' disabilities.

I 100% understand that when you have a romance book you need to have heartfelt moments between your characters, as in you need them to say I love you, to share the first kiss, to have sex (if it's age-appropriate, obviously), but Jeremy's posture did not match his issues, since he kept referring to Emmet as medicine. Yes, it's addressed this isn't the case, by a character who is a doctor even, but the trend keeps going after it, and that didn't strike me well.

Also… If a romance has over 300 pages and they kiss before the middle point, I don't see where's the appeal of the romance even. Waiting, pining, comedy… It could have had it all. Even rolling in the deep, but most relationship criteria are met before the first-ever serious moment in the plot, so this last thing can actually progress.

Jeremy's attempted suicide… was treated as an obvious plot point. And it wasn't dealt with that well except it fully went for the shock value and the cheap cliffhanger, though both of them did land for me and kept me reading. That's just good writing, but it's not a good thing in terms of representation, I believed.

Emmet… He was a good main character, a flawed one even that tried to better himself with every mistake, but the last part of the book was literally unbearable. Jealousy sucks, yeah, but to go on and throw punches at people? And then disregarding it as easy as having the punched guy saying he had it coming? I applaud the author for most of the book but introducing a third potential main character for the sole purpose of plot fuel was this book's biggest fault, as was its insta romance.

The very first line already goes as far as making it very clear Emmet likes Jeremy. Not much goes by he's already saying he wants to be his boyfriend. Purely based on looks, mind y'all. Also, the sex scenes read really uncomfortably to me, as a gay guy reading them.

This was a pretty cover, mostly. But I did enjoy learning more about disabilities, which is why giving the book 2 stars instead of one. Do check the trigger warnings if you want to read this book.