We Still Live

I was provided an ARC on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.  First, I'm just going to put it out there that this read like a straight woman writing a male/male romance, which sort of rubbed me the wrong way. I'm not sure if the author identifies as straight, so that may be presumptuous of me but the last page did say she was an "ally with a hunky husband" so there's that. I don't read very much m/m romance, so maybe this is just how they all read and maybe that means it's not for me because wow, this hit all the stereotypes. I'd like to read a few novels from own-voices authors before I judge this book entirely though.  Now let's talk about some positives. Sara Dobie Bauer is definitely an excellent writer. I enjoyed her story-telling and the cast of characters she introduced throughout. This centers around Isaac and John, but it's not always about their romance with each other. From the summary, I'm sure you can tell that this is also a story about something much deeper than that, gun violence and mass shootings. I think that aspect of the story was handled well and I feel like the author did at least some surface-level research about how experiencing this trauma can deeply impact victims. I can't speak to that myself, because luckily I've never been in a similar situation, but there were characters throughout the story who thought the discussion of this shooting should be handled drastically different than others and it was an interesting discussion.  Unfortunately, that's about all I liked. The pacing of this book felt way off to me. I was slogging through the first 75% and I absolutely would have DNF'ed it if I hadn't needed to submit a review. One of the main issues that's hovering over Isaac throughout the first 25% was his ex, Simon. This next bit may be a bit spoilery, so if you'd like to avoid any sort of spoiler, skip to the next paragraph. Simon shows up and threatens to out Isaac and John so they get fired from their jobs but then all of a sudden just has a change of heart and disappears, never to be heard from again. What?? He physically assaults John and all of a sudden just goes 'Okay, I'll leave you both alone now. Bye.' It was just so extremely rushed and resolved too perfectly. I kept expecting him to come back but he never did.  I also didn't like how John and Isaac's relationship started. It felt a bit, for lack of a better word, icky. It just seemed like Isaac was sort of taking advantage of John who had just experienced a traumatic episode. I understand everyone deals with their trauma differently though, so I can't judge too harshly. However, I just could never get behind their relationship because of the way it started.  In conclusion, this book wasn't for me. However, there are loads of 4 to 5 star reviews on Goodreads so I seem to be an outlier here. If you're in the right headspace for a darker m/m romance, maybe give this one a try. In the meantime, I'll be researching some own-voices m/m romances to read next.