I love this book! It was so so soooo cute! I adored Milo’s growth throughout the book and really enjoyed watching him and Jasper come together.

I especially liked watching Milo’s coming out journey. It really was refreshing to see a “later in life” coming out instead of the typical teenage one. It was also interesting to see how he came to terms with everything (not just being gay but how alcohol affects him, how who he interacts with affects him, and how being true to himself can make his life better)

Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to listen and review this book. These opinions are my own.

Out of Character is a lighthearted romance that centres around 2 male characters, Jasper and Milo. Both characters are perfectly likeable, though I felt like Jasper lacked a little depth and character development. The audiobook gave Milo a Jersey-eque accent which was helpful in differentiating the characters but not how I pictured Milo.

I definitely enjoyed this book although I didn't LOVE it.

I think the main two reasons that I wasn't in love with this book were that 1) I didn't resonate with the gaming/cos-play plot. If you are into this, you might just LOVE this! For me I didn't relate so it was harder to buy in. The second reason was that I felt that this was a YA novel (with some spicy sex scenes) but not categorized as one. I love a good YA but wasn't expecting one with this book - it read a tad young.

Overall I enjoyed it! Milo and Jasper's romance is sweet and believable and Milo goes through a lot of personal growth.

3.5 stars.

Thank you Net Galley for an audio ARC of Out of Character by Annabeth Albert. This is a hate to love romance between Jasper and Milo. Very cute romance with my favorite trope.

Brilliant audiobook! Thank you so much for the chance to listen to this amazing audiobook! I loved reading Conventionally Yours and Out of character is absolutely a joy and a pleasure to listen to!
Kirt Graves and Joel Froomkin did an oustanding job with this book! They were so incredible in convey the characters' doubts, fears and emotions and through their voiced I was able to live the story fully, enjoying their bickering, their cautious friendship, their falling in love with one other. I loved everything about this audiobook, I felt so involved in the story, so immersed in the book it was truly magical.

First of i’m realllllly happy i got approved for this! And the audiobook was as AMAZING as the first one<3

If anyone is interested in this book, you can totally read it without reading the first one though it will make you love the side characters more (since they were the main ones there)

I really liked jesper from the moment we met him in conventionally yours, and wanted to know more about him and his family so you could imagine my delight when i realized it’s HIS BOOK<3

I was a little bit hesitant about milo at first and really wanted to love him immediately, of course i ended up adoring him<333

their relationship and how it built up to where the book ended is just EVERYTHING!!

If you like friends to enemies to friend to lovers, this book is for you!
If you also like jock and sunshine nerdy, this is definitely for you!
The on bed trope??? It’s in this book!!!!

I know that book one had illustrations in it so i’m definitely buying the book the moment it comes out because i want to see jesper and milo<333

3.5 stars

Out of Character is a sweet and quirky romance with an amazing premise, utilizing both the childhood best friend AND enemies-to-lovers trope fairly well. As someone who has longingly admired cosplay from afar, this felt like a wonderful affirmation of my inner nerd.

For the most part, I enjoyed the romance between our leads Milo and Jasper. It was lovely to see two people with baggage really try to work through their issues together in order to become the partner that the other deserved. I did feel like there were a few moments where that idea came across like an self-help lesson that existed independently of the characters' story. As a result, the pacing did get a bit wonky for me.

However, I still think that there is a lot to love about this book and I would highly recommend this to anyone looking to extend their Pride Month reading!*

*That is code for everyone. We should all be reading LGBTIA stories during the entire year, not just June.*

Thank you to NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for an ARC of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review!

Narrators Kirt Graves and Joel Froomkin return for the second installment in Annabeth Albert’s True Colors series. This romance reunites childhood friends Jasper and Milo, who fell out in high school and now are forced to help each other. As they work together, Milo starts to realize how much of himself he’s held back to please others and, with Jasper’s support, how freeing it can be to show the world who you are.

Albert creates a fantastic balance as both Milo and Jasper work to heal and grow. Jasper is still deeply hurt by the way their friendship ended, and he's wary of trusting Milo again. Meanwhile, Milo has spent so much of his life working to fit into a mold of who other people wanted him to be and it isn't easy to break out of. They both make mistakes, learn to forgive, and find a way forward in a way that felt genuine and realistic. The romance between them is sweet, built on the foundation of a rekindled friendship and fans of friends-to-lovers and second chance romances will find a lot to enjoy in the way Milo and Jasper come together.

I enjoyed Kirt Graves' narration, though Joel Froomkin was a little hit or miss for me at points. I don't always love the cadence he uses for his characters. Still, I think I'd listen to an audiobook narrated by either of these narrators again.

Overall, this was a really solid second installment in the series. I think that fans of the first will not want to miss out on this sequel as Albert continues to explore the friend group established there and deliver new kinds of nerdy obsessions for characters to geek out over. This book can easily be read as a standalone, and is a perfect fit for readers looking for nerdy, queer, new adult romances.

I really liked that the big second act drama wasn't a miscommunication between the leads. They weren't perfect but when they fought, they sorted their business out in the same night.

Out of Character is a M/M romance where two former best friends turned enemies fall in love. It's nerdy and has cosplay and card games. Which I love these elements love. But I just didn't really connect with them. Out of the 2 Jasper I connected with more but they just didn't seem like a end game couple. There's not a lot of conflict and liked the idea of someone coming to terms with who they really are and getting the right community around you.

They have to over come thete past selfs and there past with each other. It was a cute story but didn't connect with it that much and im not sure why.

This is a 2nd book in a series but different characters. You don't have to read the 1st story or in order to follow.


Thanks to Netgalley and Dreamscape Media for the audio ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Thanks to Netgalley and Dreamscape Media for the audio ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

4.5 stars! I loved Conventionally Yours, so when I saw the author had another book coming out with a similar sounding premise - nerds + jock, enemies/ex-friends to lovers, conventions/cosplay, and a quest to get something done, I knew I had to read it. I enjoyed this one even more. While the story of Conventionally Yours resonated with aspects of my own life in ways that I found emotional and validating, this one hit my favorite tropes with tons of chemistry, and I devoured the audiobook. I loved the geekiness of the card game, cosplaying, and cons so much.

I think as with any book with dual narrators, I definitely had a preference (mine was for Jasper's narrator), and the differing voices made finding a comfortable speed a little tricky, as one was harder to understand sped up, but not sped up one felt slower than I'd like. This was not anything wrong, and had they been each narrating a book alone I probably wouldn't have noticed any issue finding a speed.

I knew I would enjoy this, after the first book, but I think I liked this one even better. There was something about Jasper's reluctant trust and Milo's shy earnestness that made me warm to them quickly.

This was perhaps my favorite second-chance romance, with an intense childhood friendship that, after a break, became an intense romance. Their past pulled each of them in hard, and it was a joy to watch them reconnect and rediscover how well they went together.

It helped that Milo wasn't the only one who had issues to work on. While he ditched his friends and worked on gathering the courage to come out, Jasper had to face his own tendency to steamroll others in his grand plans and had to learn to take a step back and really listen and see people.

The Odyssey game framework worked really well for this romance as well, with the cosplay giving Milo courage (eventually) and the patterns of the game helping Jasper see solutions.

The audiobook was excellently narrated and though I was skeptical at first I came to really enjoy both the narrator who voiced Jasper's chapters and the narrator who voiced Milo's. They each infused their performace with a lot of heart and Jasper and Milo (and their friends) leapt off the page.

All in all it was an excellent listen and I enjoyed it thoroughly. I eagerly await Annabeth Albert's next book.

*Thanks to NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for providing an audio arc for review.

Unfortunately, this book left me indifferent. I feel like the star rating might be a 2.5 maybe even closer to a 2, but it still had enjoyable moments.

I thought the pacing of this book was a bit weird, and I also did not like how fast Milo and Jasper got together. I also hated that Milo started out as a bystander to Jasper being bullied, sure he never bullied Jasper himself but he never did anything to stop his "friends".

On the flip side, I did really like the game culture within the book. The game Odessey was really cool and I loved that aspect. Overall, just really meh feelings about this one.

Also, another quick thing I wanted to touch on was the narration, it is a dual perspective book and we got a narrator for each perspective. The narrator for Milo did a really good job, but I personally did not like the narrator for Jasper so that made this book a bit annoying to listen to.

I could not stop listening to this book! It was cute and geeky with just the right amount of heartbreak and sexiness.

The story flips between two childhood friends reconnecting and navigating their relationship after 8 years of estrangement. Milo is the jock who sat silently by while his teammates bulled Jasper, his childhood bestie for being smart, gay and into “geeky” things like cosplay and card games. Fast forward 8 years and Milo reaches out to Jasper for help who reluctantly agrees on the terms Milo joins his cosplay group for their weekly visits to a hospital helping sick kids.

This book made me smile like a fool half the time and break my heart the other half. Not that it was angsty and overly tragic, but rather you felt for Milo as he wrestled with atonement and self-worth. Trying to figure out how to better himself while accepting help and love from others. It also reminded me that there are still so many people in environments where it’s not safe for them to be their true selves and that broke my heart a bit.

I’d like to point out that you don’t need to be a gamer or participate in cosplay to understand or enjoy this book. Albert does a great job of balancing the inside jokes people familiar with this type of “geekdom” with being completely new to them. Also as I was listening I kept waiting for the bottom to drop out and the conflict to rear its ugly head. I don’t want to include spoilers so I’ll just say the climax of the story was not what I was expecting. It was, however, 100% refreshing and surprisingly satisfying.

On a more serious note, I was a bit worried at first, with bullying and romance, even if it was bystander bullying, which is often just as bad. I was concerned about how Albert was going to navigate through this and I believe she did a fairly good job. She didn’t make excuses or lay on Milo’s trauma to make us feel like he was justified. We understood why he felt he couldn’t do anything, as wrong as it was, he also owned up to his mistakes and the remorse felt authentic. I liked how the characters dealt with this issue and how Milo continued to grapple with himself throughout the story, and not let himself off the hook but rather dealt with his issues while not forgetting the pain he caused.

Lastly, this was my first audiobook and it was quite an experience. There were two narrators as the chapters alternated between the two main characters. I adorned Milo’s voice and his rendition of all the other characters. Jasper’s on the other hand didn’t do it for me, he just felt too old and I didn’t like his version of the other characters especially the females, and yet I still enjoyed the book. Also, there are some seriously steamy parts that I was not prepared for especially with them being read aloud to me by essentially strangers. It was an odd sensation and left me a bit giddy and flushed like a schoolgirl.

I will defiantly be buying a hard copy of this book and checking out the other book in the series.

Special thank you to NetGalley and Dreamscape Media, for sharing this digital copy in exchange for my honest thoughts.

I would like to start this off by saying the I received an ARC version of the audiobook "Out of Character."
This book is amazing. It is about two young men who are fresh out of college. Our two main characters were friends when they were young but they were not through high school and college. They have to work together to get back 4 ultra-rare game cards one of the main characters lost in a game. This book really shows the stuggles of not wanting to disappoint your family while it also shows how being true to yourself can improve your relationship with them. Overall, this book is wonderful and I would read again.

TW: death of a parent, alcoholic parent, homophobic parent, brother in the military, homophobic comments, bullying, anxiety

Rep: Two gay MCs, gay and trans SCs, learning disability, physical disability

Best childhood friends to enemies to lovers? This was written for me personally, my two favourite tropes combined.
Also jock x nerd? I was so here for this.
I already loved Conventionally yours a lot, so I was super excited for this one. It even has the same narrator, which I loved. I think it’s always best for a multiple POV book to have multiple narrators as well and these two do a perfect job.

Milo and Jesper were best friends when they were children, but when Jesper began playing soccer and made new friends they had a huge fight and stopped talking.
Of course these friends were typical jocks, making fun of the “nerds”. But there’s more to this story than Jesper knows.
When a few years later Milo made a stupid mistake and needs Jespers help, they make a bargain, because Jesper needs Milos help too.

I already loved the whole plot surrounding the card game in book 1. It’s nothing I’ve read before, but I know people who actually play huge card games in real life and it’s so interesting!
I’m glad we got to see the Gaming Granpa group and the game shop again. But this time there was also cosplay (and fanart) involved, which made this book even nerdier and I loved it!

I loved Jesper and I also loved Milo. They were so cute together. I love a good redemption arc and I think Milos character development in this book was everything and the main focus of this story (in my opinion).
He wasn’t a horrible person to begin with. Yes, he had and has horrible friends and didn’t stand up for Jesper in the past. But he was only a kid and he had his reasons to maintain a low profile.
He knows he didn’t to the right think back then and the more he started to trust Jesper again, the more he opened up to him and it became more clear why he acted like he did in the past.
He does everything he can to change his life, become a better person, and live the life he truly wants to in the future.
He made mistakes and owns them and tries to do better.

I’m absolutely in love with Annaberg Albert’s style of writing. It’s fun and gripping.
But mostly I love how diverse this series is and how consent and talking about and during sex is handled.
Milo has a learning disability, but he is also physically disabled since an accident in the past. He has a lot of problematic family history and hasn’t been able to live openly as a gay man until now. There was a lot of baggage, but I loved how everything was handled.
This book was very emotional in many aspects, there’s a lot of anxiety and angst, but it was also so beautiful and heartwarming at the same time.

That being said, I loved to read about how the two MCs start to trust each other and got to know each other again slowly. How they overcame their shared past and took a chance again. It was realistic and there wasn’t a lot of unnecessary drama, only understandable trust issues and fear.
Jesper trying to push Milo in the right direction (sometimes a little too much), fearing that he isn’t really changing - while Milo tries everything he can, fearing he isn’t changing quickly enough.
I loved how everything was solved in the end, how the characters realised their mistakes, talked, tried to to better.
I might have even liked this a little more than the first book. I hope there will be a third?

Out of Character is a cute, nerdy, M/M romance where two former best friends fall in love. Similarly to other reviewers I liked this but didn't love it, thought I'm not entirely certain why that is.

I enjoyed the nerdy card game elements, and I loved how much heart the story has. The characters have to grow individually and together to deal with things from the past. It's cute and the characters are good, I just wasn't deeply invested. I think part of that might be that we didn't get as much of an emotional journey from Jasper. He's a nice guy and seems into Milo, but I didn't necessarily buy that this would be a forever relationship if that makes sense.

One thing worth noting is the characters are young, like late college age, and the writing felt like a YA romance slightly aged up. And that isn't necessarily a bad thing, it just wasn't what I was expecting and for me, it read a little younger than I might have preferred. That said, I like the exploration of how coming out can be difficult depending on your family, and I loved the emphasis on good communication in the relationship. This is a pretty low-angst story which I think will appeal to people. So yeah, liked but didn't love is a good way to put it.

The audiobook is good. The actor playing Milo has kind of an Italian accent which is fun. I received an audio copy for review via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

*Thank you to NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for providing an audiobook eARC of this book. All opinions are my own.*

4.25/5 stars!!

Friends to enemies to lovers has got to be one of my all time favorite tropes, and this queer romcom does it soooo well. I highly recommend this book to my fellow nerds, all fans of the hurt/comfort trope, and anyone who loves a good fluffy queer romcom.

The interactions were adorable and I was laughing and 'aww'ing the whole time. My one complaint was that the ending did seem a little bit drawn out. I was up for it because the fluff is top tier, but some of the later content felt a little unnecessary.

This book has convinced me to pick up Albert's other novel: Conventionally Yours.

Content Warnings: homophobia, internalized homophobia, mention of self-harm

EX FRIENDS TO LOVERS! Somehow this is even better than friends to lovers and also the fact that they were childhood friends, had their falling out, then reconnected as adults is one of my favorite tropes.

I really loved this book and that mostly falls into me loving redemption arcs and allowing characters to be human and make mistakes.

Milo and Jasper were once best friends, but then Milo started falling into the sports crown and Jasper didnt. Jasper was the opposite of a jock. He was gay and nerdy and into gaming. The very stereotypical target for the jock bullies, and that exactly what happened. Milo sat back and allowed his jock friends to bully and traumatize Jasper for years and now as adults, Jasper wants nothing to do with Milo when he comes to him for help.

Milo fucked up again, and the only person who can help him fix it is his ex-best friend who he has loved for year, unbeknownst to Jasper. Jasper agrees to help Milo on a few conditions that involve Milo doing cosplay with him for the local children's hospital.

Their quest to fix Milo's mistake takes them weeks and lots of cosplay and connection.

Milo made a lot of mistakes as a teenager and no one is disputing that. He had his reasons and his own trauma that influenced his decisions but none of that is an excuse for his behavior. He was a dick. plain and simple, but we have to let people learn to be better and apologize for their mistakes. That being said, Jasper didn't have to accept Milo's apology at all. Forgiveness is not owed to anyone no matter the reasons for someone's bad behavior.

I realize that the bully and the bullied ending up together isn't a plot that will be for everyone and it has the potential to be triggering for some. Please be aware of that before reading this one.

Personally, I identified a lot with Milo. I was the kid in school who didn't speak up for others. I had my reasons and trauma, but just like Milo, there are no excuses to allowing others to bully. Silence is violence and bystanders are just as bad as the bullies themselves. I'm forever grateful that I got out of my terrible hometown and had someone slap some sense and humanity into me during college. I think it's a disservice to not allow people to grow and change and while forgiveness isn't a guarantee, second chances have to be given. I loved Milo's characters and his redemption arc. He still struggled with a lot and had to finally decide if living as himself was more important than the opinions of others. His anxiety got in the way a lot and had him making some poor choices, but he actively learned from his mistakes and owns up to them in the end.

Was it fair for Jasper to have to do some of the emotional work for Milo? no. Did it somehow fit their characters? yes. Jasper needed to help even if it hurt him at times. While this isn't a narrative for every bully/bullied situation, it did fit the circumstances and characters in my opinion.

Let's talk quickly about the "virgin hero" nonsense that was used to promote this book. Using virginity as a plot point is super problematic and especially framing it as "virgin hero saves the day and loses their virginity in the process because of course no one could be a hero while being a virgin" is extra bad. I don't really understand this marketing tool for this book in particular because not only was Milo not the hero of this book, he also "lost his virginity" very casually and without any of the typical stereotypical virgin plot points. Milo was a virgin because he was scared and had a lot of internalized homophobia, not because he didn't want to have sex. Jasper and Milo having sex the first time wasn't framed as this big to-do in the way that so many first times for virgins normally is. It just worked for them. In that way I was extra disappointed to see virginity used as a selling point for this one. VIRGINITY IS A SOCIAL CONSTRUCT. stop using it to sell books. stop using it as a character flaw. stop trying to fix someone's virginity. people don't need to have partnered sex or solo sex to be human or normal. That narrative is problematic and dangerous and super queerphobic.

okay that's all, I did love this book but was sad to see the way it was marketed.

rep: gay MCs, anxiety
CW: homophobic comments, bullying, anxiety, panic

The was such a fun book! I’ve never really been drawn towards the nerd/jock dynamic before but this book was definitely enjoyable. Annabeth Albert has an excellent prose and her characterizations are wonderful.

I loved the dual narration of the audiobook.

This book is easy to get into and characters were so easy to fall in love with.

I keep getting sucked into these romances that promise some version of enemies to lovers but then slam you with all this past trauma. While it's not a bad read, I was lead to believe I was getting a fun trope book and end up with way more sadness and feelings to work through. I did really like the characters in this book and their chemistry was great, it just took me awhile to get into the book because both of them had some heavy back stories to deal with. I had not read the first book but I liked this enough that I want to go check it out. Also I don't really know a lot about the card games they were talking about, but it wasn't too overwhelming in the story.
I was excited this was available as an audiobook since that's how I do a lot of my reading but unfortunately the narrators kind of overdid it in their acting. Jasper's voice sounded overexaggerated, kind of like Jim Carrey sometimes. Milo sounded a lot like a stereotype. They weren't so off putting that I couldn't listen to the book but it took me longer to get into it and root for them.