Book Talk Review; The Masked Boys

Scott is mine

Brenton Tucker and Reid Wells grew up as rich brats, until they were caught doing something stupid and shipped off to the Highlands Bridge Academy: two years, no contact with the outside world, beat-the-man-into-you, all-boys, all the time.

Reid has a plan: with straight Brenton as director, they film the types of scenes people pay huge sums of money for: Skull and Bones meets Eyes Wide Shut. It’s not cam boys; it’s art house films — starring very, very attractive guys. If Reid can’t have Brenton, he might as well have this to distract him.

And in the meantime, he can also distract himself with sweet, shy Cash — who’s also into Scott, rumored to be at Highlands for hijacking the Fort Sumter ferry. But as Brenton keeps filming, all those confusing feelings he’s had flitting around about Reid his whole life start to surface, and spread, and tangle. Brenton, Reid, Scott, and Cash are making movies. They’re trying to figure out where they stand with each other. But they also might be falling in love.

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This book is so much everything. It's complicated relationships, hot boys, hotter sex, drama, and tender all wrapped into one. 

This is not your typical Julia McBryant novel. Normally, Julia writes these high emotion, super angsty books with boys that you just want to hold and take care of because they're so broken. You don't get that here. These four boys aren't broken. Lost, but not broken. And it's brilliant. 

It's hot, dirty, tells an actual story of four angsty teens getting what they need without being ridiculous. The sex wasn't boring, which with everything they were doing could have been, kudos to the author on that as there are only so many ways you can write sex. 

Brenton is such a perfect, spacey, nut of a boyfriend. He's the director, before being sent to Highlands Bridge he won awards for his films. He wants to create something beautiful and with his best friend and two other lovers he does. You can't help but love the dreamy nut. 

There were times where Reid is a little bitch and I wanted to punch him but he got better. His love for Brandon was all-encompassing and that's what you have to understand. He's not acting the jealous boyfriend because that's who he is, but because for so long he wanted for what he thought was unattainable. Reid goes on a journey, it's long and painful but at the end you can see why the others love him. That's characterization.

Cash is such a baby and needs all the cuddles. He never had people who cared or who stayed, his parents shipped him off to military school when he was twelve and he never felt safe. Not until the Plan. Not until Scott, Brenton, and Reid. Not until he finds love in the most unlikely of places and gets to keep it. 

Scott is mine. I will cut someone. He's a baby Daddy. He takes care of Brenton and Cash. He gives Reid a safe space to just be and to have equal footing with a partner. He's the sanest of the four. I love how steadfast he is. How help knows how to be what his partners need when they need it, especially since everyone is so different. 

With the gay for pay/porn aspect, the relationship between the four of them could have gone so wrong but it didn't. It didn't feel like the four of them were just being thrown together. They all had specific needs and reasons to need one and it worked. It worked so well through all the jealousy and insecurity and feels.

Their relationships, while messy and complex are seamless and you can feel how they're able to make them work.

It could have gone really wrong and been clumpy or just confusing or not work at all. It didn't. Julia McBryant truly pulled out all the stops and created a beautifully written novel about love and art-house style porn. I've never read anything like it before and I never will. The Masked Boys is a unique masterpiece of a book. 

*Quote-

"Cash had a way of asking questions that hit the dark heart of everything, that slammed you breathless, then of watching and waiting."

"I can make people see something the way I want them to. And I want them to see something beautiful. Most things are ugly. Life’s ugly. It’s ugly and it’s stupid...But you can step into this other world and things can be different.”

"He was melting for this one, this sweet one, this one who was so capable but needed so much reassurance. Scott could give it to him. Scott could take care of him. He was supposed to do it. If he could help, if he could fix hurt, broken things, then he himself would be less hurt and broken."

"You don’t need me. I need someone who doesn’t need me...I can tell you things. And when I finally do fuck you, you’ll be so gorgeous under me, god. But you won’t be Brenton...I want someone that isn’t him that I can talk to and not have to hold all the time. Brenton needs taken care of. You want taken care of.”

"They all needed each other in these strange ways, and they gave to those needs, and it worked. It worked. All four of them together, doing gay-for-pay porn, and it worked."