4.5 stars

If you love messy stories this is definitely one to pick up. It's like a train wreck levels of messy, I couldn't stop listening to the audiobook. Every character is a bit of an asshole, and they all need therapy.

It's just a really fun time all around.

The premise sounds so great.

Dom is newly single and off to a bachelor weekend he planned for his childhood best friend. A summery weekend away, queer with shenanigans. Sounds great.

Unfortunately the characters were terrible and I hated everyone. I was holding out hope that when we met “Bucky” he would be a Sebastian Stan/ Bucky Barnes but a pro golfer character. Instead we got the Prilosec OTC guy…

Maybe my expectations were too high and unmet… I’m glad I was able to get an early listening copy but sorry to say it wasn’t for me.

Thanks to Netgalley and Dreamscape Audio for an ALC.

This book is truly awful.

The plot really did sound like it was something that was perfect for me with the summer setting, humor and hijinks, and a gay best friend.

Instead Dom is such a poor me type of character. Never examining his own flaws and constantly trying to please everyone.

Unfortunately every single character is unlikable and terrible.

The narration was also pretty cringy. Bucky's voice was giving me Larry the Cable Guy and less hot celebrity golfer. 🤣🤣🤣

I feel so bad giving this review, and I am grateful for the opportunity to review a new release. But unfortunately this book was not my fave.

4.5/5 stars! I need this book to be a movie/ TV drama!! SO much happened in this book, and it really read like a reality TV show where it was just secret after secret coming out! I really liked our MC and felt bad about all he had to deal with. I also kept screaming at him to find better friends who weren't so selfish! I loved his character development and the end felt fitting. Can't wait to read other books from this author.

Note: I listened to this as an audiobook and loved the narrator.

A review copy was provided by the publisher via NetGalley but this did not influence my opinion or rating of the book.

I'm disappointed that I didn't enjoy this. It has a pretty cute premise and a nice summer setting that would be great for a beach read. Unfortunately, I think I disliked almost every character, Dom most of all.

Dom is caught between his two best friends who are also a couple about to be married. He doesn't know how to stand up for himself and enforce boundaries, so he tries to give both of his friends what they want until everything crashes down. Dom is also perpetually the victim and his 'poor me' attitude got old quickly.

The romance between Dom and Bucky lacked chemistry for me and I just couldn't root for them. Dom outed Bucky multiple times (even though Bucky was clear that he didn't want people to know) and Bucky treated Dom like a dirty little secret. They both should have ended up with other people.

I did like that Patrick and Kate had a realistic relationship that included constantly being a work in progress and learning to communicate their needs. Individually, they each had some issues to work on, but overall they were pretty good friends to Dom and I wanted them to have a happy marriage.

The narrator was okay, but his voice for Bucky was unappealing.

I voluntarily read and reviewed this book. All opinions are my own. Thank you to Dreamscape Media and NetGalley for the copy

Thank you to NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for the audio arc of The Gay Best Friend. I had so much fun listening to this book. It was quick-paced and easy to follow. The story was a great concept, and it was very enjoyable. I thought the characters were well thought out but slightly irritating at points. I found myself rolling my eyes at many of the stereotypes used. Still, I will say that the stereotypes were purposefully placed to show Dom's people-pleasing struggles and the pressure on him to act in specific ways around certain people. I would recommend this to anyone looking for a quick-paced summer read.

Audiobook Review:
Overall – 4
Performance – 4
Story – 4

I enjoyed listening to this but probably for the first time in a long while, I think I might have liked it more if I’d read it with my eyes instead of with my ears. There was really nothing wrong with Daniel Henning’s performance but it didn’t bring out the humor for me that was a huge part of this story.

Dom has a complicated relationship with his best friend of many years, and his bride-to-be who is also his bestie. Things go awry during the bachelor party and Dom’s loyalty to both the bride and groom is tested. Add in another complication which is Dom falling for a pro-golfer who is a friend of the groom and who is deep in the closet and deep in denial about his sexuality.

This story has many moving parts and that kept me engaged while listening to it.

A review copy was provided by the publisher via NetGalley but this did not influence my opinion or rating of the book.

THE PERFECT BEACH READ
It is light and entertaining. I spent my day listening to the delightful Daniel Henning, an engaging and versatile narrator. It is a nice change from my usual interest. It made me smile and I enjoyed the inner workings of Dominic and his romantic comedy of errors. It was a lighthearted look at the reality of the complexities of being gay in a still predominately straight world. I absolutely enjoyed every second of it. Nicolas DiDomizio does a great job illustrating how bringing the two worlds together is a wonderful thing. Does not disappoint.

I have mixed feelings on this one.

Dominic is the childhood best friend of Patrick and has since become best friends in adulthood with Patrick’s fiancé, Kate.

Dominic is immediately put in the middle of Patrick and Kate’s trust and communication issues at the beginning of the story at Patrick’s bachelor party. Kate asks Dom to report back on anything and everything, especially if it’s nefarious and Patrick asks Dom to not report the nefarious ongoings back to Kate. All of this is happening after Dom and his finance have broken up and no one has really bothered to check in too much with him. The situations Dom is put in by the other characters are stressful, immature and essentially impossible to come out unscathed.

All the while Dom is grieving his prior relationship, hooking up with someone new who is on the down low and trying to find joy in his life, as his job is draining him. I felt a lot of empathy for Dom but then became frustrated when he (albeit both times accidentally) outed his closeted love interest.

Suffice it to say the characters in this book are MESSY and certainly need quite a bit of therapy.

I did enjoy the message of Dom finding himself and his own identity and an identity as just someone’s best friend and not specifically their gay best friend.

The audio narrator is Daniel Henning, who I have quickly come to love! He reads with such emotion you can’t help but feel empathy for the characters. He brings the story to life in a much needed way and though his performance was excellent.

3.5 Stars (half star added from the e-book format due to Daniel’s excellent narration)

Thank you to NetGalley and Dreamscape media for the Audio-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book was really pure genius. I found it hilarious and chaotic to an extent I've really read before. All of the characters were so relatable and realistic, which lead them all to be unlikeable at various points during the story. But that's what I enjoyed the most, because bad decisions were made by everyone throughout and yet you still managed to like everyone by the end because this is what real people do.

The book spans a summer where a recently single gay man attends both the stag and hen parties of his best friends. Attempting to navigate what to tell the other friend after each party leads to very difficult situations and some hilarity. And amongst all this there is a story of coming out and how the desperation to keep our reality secret and cause upset for ourselves as well as those around us.

I was given advanced access to the audio of this book by the publisher via Netgalley. I was extremely happy that the narrator turned out to be Daniel Henning, who narrated TJ Klune's 'The House in the Cerulean Sea'. He is really an excellent narrator and perfectly encapsulates all of the characters.

Who doesn’t love a token gay best friend? Dom is best friends with both the bride and the groom which means he will be at both of their Bachelor and Bachelorette parties. While still dealing with a failed relationship after a breaking off an engagement, Dom tries to be there for both of his friends. He ends up in his own head and causes issues while playing both sides. I loved the ups and downs that are shown through friendships. This book had depth as it explored Dom’s different relationships and how they changed over the years. Each character was well developed and had a purpose. The plot was easy to follow along and kept me engaged. A fun read that had me smiling and rooting for Dom to do the right thing. This book showed it’s never too late to learn about yourself and to start feeling comfortable in your own skin.

Very cute and I enjoyed the audiobook narrator. Thank you NetGalley and the publishers for allowing me to read

the gay best friend is a a wonderful suimmer read fir those looking for Something like Emily Henry but Gay. a this book has a Happy for now romance, rich people drama, but most importantly, talks about how important it is to love and be yourself. the characters were fun and vibrant. i enjoyed the protag and was cheering and cringing along with him throught the whole story.

This book was such a letdown. I loved the first part, and the dynamic between Dominic and Bucky was nice at first. I was looking for more romance between them. But as soon as that night ended I knew it wouldn't be that.
Instead, this book turned into a pity party for the gay best friend, because it is apparently all he is to his friend.

You don't root for anyone in this book. Dom is annoying, everything is about him, and everyone is against him. His so-called best friend is treating him like shit, but so is he. Not once was he nice to Kate or Patrick. He was selfish throughout the book but shows little to no remorse. Threw a tantrum at her bachelorette party and wasn't a decent friend and still everyone loves him again at the end of the book.
Bucky was too much of a cliché. He opened up once to Dom and then fell in love, played the hetero guy until he was outed by a fan, and then couldn't care about it. Nothing made sense.

The one thing that actually infuriated me was the way all women were portrayed in this book. All were shallow, and superficial, and hated him. None had depth, they were mainly here to make the reader pity him. Because Dom is just a poor gay best friend, who really couldn't hold himself back from telling almost everyone he slept with Bucky, who tried desperately to not let his best friend and groom sleep with a stripper. It's not his fault if he barely participated during the bachelor party, or that he ran away with a stranger during the bachelorette party and made a scene. It wasn't his fault either if didn't reach out to the couple before their wedding, or that once the groom came and apologized, he didn't bother to prepare a speech. Dom is obviously not the problem, the others are. They should really thank him actually, for being rude, because without that Melanie wouldn't have divorced her husband and Kate wouldn't have questioned her relationship with her future husband, Bucky would have never understood it's better to be out than to live with this secret.

As for the writing, it felt like too much tell and no show. Too much repetition too, literally, if Dom thinks of something, a character says it two seconds after. It happened too often as well.

Overall, this had a great premise but was badly executed. I would have loved for the story to really build around Bucky and Dom and how they would have navigated their relationship through the world of professional sports and going from strangers to lovers

The Gay Best Friend is a wonderful story of coming to terms with who you are and who you pretend to be.

People pleasing Dom is fresh off the implosion of his relationship with his fiancé when he steps into the two roles he plays most often—best friend and this best man for his childhood friend, Patrick—someone that he’s always looked up to and strived to keep up with, and the token gay bff to Kate—Patrick’s fiancé who he has become closer to.

A part of both the bachelor and bachelorette parties—straddling the line of best friend and bro code proves to be more than difficult, add to that a little hookup with someone that could be curious or could be closeted, and being stuck in the middle of everyone else’s drama that he seems to get blamed for and Dom begins to crack.

The narration was done really well and Daniel Henning was able to capture the many personalities of the characters—including the different versions of Dom depending on who he is with.

This was a great story with an experience and perspective I cannot relate and getting into Dom’s head was a real treat as he figured out who he really is.

I read this book as a ebook first and gave it 3 stars but the audiobook bumps it up to 4! I really thought the narrator gave more life and sympathy to the characters.

The book has a lot of good themes about prioritizing yourself, not allowing people to use you and standing up for yourself. Every romantic and even friendship relationship seems toxic and like they were friends when they were younger but should have grown apart. We see that happen across the many relationships the main character has and some of the relationships improve while some of them have to go separate ways.

It was a pretty quick listen and some parts were laugh out loud funny so it feels like a good summer beach read with some queer rep.

This was a quick fun read. It was fairly predictable and included many cliches, but was a fun ride.

Oh my God, I ADORED this book. I saw another review where the reviewer said that DiDomizio's The Gay Best Friend is like an Emily Henry book, but gay. That sentence sums it up.
I don't know if I can even get my thoughts together, this book will stay with me and I can't wait to purchase it for my shelf.
Dom is the gay best friend of the groom (Patrick) and the bride (Kate). Nothing can go wrong...
He attends the bachelor party and gets put into a tough situation with multiple bros and their actions. Then with all the secrets he's trying to keep, he goes to the bride's bachelorette party. Even more secrets are revealed and second-hand embarrassment is entirely real.
While romance is a part of the plot, I believe that the other messages hold more weight. A person coming out. A person trying to maintain their life because of societal expectations. Miscommunication (and no, the miscommunication trope is NOT cringe or really a big part of this story.) I can't praise this book enough.
It's perfect.

Thank you to Netgalley and Dreamscape Media for an eArc in exchange for an honest review.

Domenic is a hot mess. He's so eager to please, that he has a difficult time being his true self. This causes problems between him and his relationships. He tells everyone what they want to hear.

Many thanks to Net Galley and Dreamscape Media for an audio copy for an honest review.

Thank you NetGalley and Dreamscape for this audio arc.

Have you ever wanted to shake a character and beg them to grow a spine, but yet still loving the drama? That pretty much summarized this book for me.

All the characters were toxic throughout. The side characters put Dom in horrible situations and trampled over any amount of boundaries Dom tried to put, plus all the cheating aspect was just so yucky, Dom should have dumped the whole friend group right then and there.
The internalized homophobia from the LI. Dom's extreme people-pleasing, the resentment of his upbringing and his inability to set boundaries and let everyone walk over him until he explodes.

All of them needed therapy, stat. The only person with a spine was the ex-fiance.

Besides all of this, I thoroughly enjoyed listening to this book. It was an easy, quick listen. It does touches on heavier subjects of queerness, both external and internal, and how people will sometimes treat you because of it.

The narrator did a good job for all the characters, besides Bucky. This is just a personal prefrence, but he just made him sound like a 70-year-old smoker.