Style of Love

Gay 4 Renovations, Book 1

De: AJ Sherwood

Narrado por: Jamal Roque, Ellis Evans

Asher’s dream job: Interior design: check.

His dream boyfriend, Park Bo Gum: not check (sadly).

Straight as a board, childhood bff Zar: check.

Zar becoming his boyfriend: che—wait, what?!

Style of Love is a contemporary GFY, best-friends-to-lovers slow-burn romance.

©2022 AJ Sherwood (P)2022 Podium Audio

Love it

I am a huge fan of AJ Sherwood and her characters. This story is really good. Asher and Zar are the perfect couple if they would ever get around to realizing it! Delightful story. Triggers for toxic parents but Zar and his family take care of it. I enjoyed the dual narration too. Very good!

Didn’t know what to expect

I loved this story. My heart broke for Asher’s family dynamic and swelled with hope with Zar. I especially loved the diversity. I love seeing and hearing my people represented in loving stories. Thank you, A.J. Sherwood.

Loved it!

I loved this story and the narration was great! Listened to the book on 2x speed with no loss in quality from the voice actors. They did great conveying emotion and bringing the text to life.

Great story

I love this story and everything Sherwood writes. The narrator for Asher was 5 stars. The narrator for Zar is from the William Shatner school of narration. He paused before phrases and dependent clauses at the end of sentences. It’s a shame because the timber of his voice is lovely. I…just…struggled with the inflection…and pauses. It’s still worth getting. Lately Sherwood’s audiobooks have had multiple narrators. I don’t know why since a good single narrator is more effective.

Loved it.

The characters are wonderful. Asher is creative while Zar is his compliment. I hope AJ Sherwood continues this series.

Fun and sweet

This is by far my favorite book by this author. I have listened to this book multiple times at this point, and it doesn’t get old. It’s such a fun story, with sweet heartfelt moments and enough external (family) drama to keep things interesting. Everything with Asher’s dog BFG is so freaking cute, too.

Narration-wise, Ellis Evans is absolute gold. His comedic timing is genius. I could listen to him all day long. Jamal Roque is more of an acquired taste for me, not a narrator I’d seek out on my own.

Loved it!!

The story was cute and fluffy! Definitely worth listening to. The narrator's did a great job.

Yay for Asher and Zar!

Love this friends to more story. Hopeful for story 2. The characters are wonderful and the story is heartwarming. Love how they find each other as well as how their friends and Zar’s family comes to Asher’s defense vs his homophobic family. Great story!

Very good, for what it is

There's a scene about halfway through Style of Love, where Zar, our Gay For You protagonist, tries to pin down his sexuality. I wish he hadn't, really; GFY is inherently unrealistic, and listening to him flounder about trying to define himself is a bit like listening to Geordi try to explain the scientific principles behind warp nacelles. Perhaps AJ Sherwood included it to give the genre some legitimacy? But look, no one is doing the math; I've already suspended my disbelief on the GFY thing, I don't need to hear Zar's ruminations on whether he's pansexual or whatever. Spoiler alert: he ends up settling on "not straight," because what do labels matter, really?

Well, in real life they actually matter a great deal, of course, but that's beside the point. I'm not going to criticize a GFY book for being GFY, because it's very up front about that in the blurb. Luckily it's a brief scene. Altogether the book is far more good than bad, mostly on the strength of the two main characters and a large portion of the supporting cast. I like both Asher and Zar, and I like Asher's friends (which is important because they're the protagonists of the subsequent books in this series), and I love his dog. I like that the book isn't afraid to dally on details, such as Zar's police work or Asher's home renovation clients. I'm not at all interested in home decorating but Asher made it interesting. I like the fact that I like Asher; very often in GFY books, the gay character is irritating or strident under the guise of being "sassy," and Asher is decidedly not that. I like that one of them is the pursuer, and I like that it's Zar.

The one aspect where the book falls flat on its face, however, is the subplot involving Asher's family, and not just because they're bad people, but because they're all poorly-realized characters. His mother, especially, is so cartoonishly rotten that she doesn't come across like an actual person. She's such a caricature of a specific type of person that she's been given the name "Karen," barf. Her comeuppance is so badly written and unlikely that it seems like vaguely misogynist fanfiction, honestly. I would have given the book five stars if not for this.

I may listen to the book again; if I do, I'll skip the climax of that plotline, which takes up like two and a half chapters. I have no complaints about either narrator, both of whom are new to me and both of whom are spectacular. I would LOVE for them to continue to narrate the series, which I'll definitely be picking up.

Cute and low angst

The characters are so endearing and lovable. The relationship between Asher and Zar is #goals. There is a homophobic family to deal with, but Zar’s protective, brilliant mother reads them the riot act, and let me just say, you’ll want the popcorn for that scene.