Bear McKenna is one day shy of his 18th birthday when his mother takes off with her latest loser of a boyfriend and 95% of his savings leaving Bear with $137.50 and a forged Power of Attorney so he'll be able to manage the legalities of caring for his 6 y/o half-brother, Tyson. Mother Of The Year, right? 
 The story begins three years later. Bear has done a valiant job raising the Kid, as Ty Is called. Bear and his on-again, off-again girlfriend Anna and his elderly neighbor Mrs. Paquinn manage the care of Kid, but it's nearly summer and Bear is looking forward to the return of his BFF, Creed from college. What he doesn't expect is the return of Oliver (Otter), Creed's older brother, from his three year self-exile in San Diego. Otter is gay, and he and Bear shared a drunken kiss three years before, the very night Otter up and left for Cali. 
 Bear has always wondered why, but so many people have left him, he doesn't expect any different. 
 But, things are. Otter is depressed and Creed wants Bear to find out why. Turns our Otter has silently loved Bear for a long, long time. He never did anything about it because Bear was straight, and a child, comparatively. There is an 8 year age difference. 
 The writing is so beautiful; we are in Bear's head throughout and we see his slow changes, his gradual acceptance, his deep love for Kid, and Ann, and Creed....and Otter. Their summer of love is tender and tragic, by turns. It seems, this summer, all the chickens come home to roost. Some good, some vile. The absolute love that Bear has for Kid, the way his life is forfeit to caring for his wise, eccentric, ecoterrorist-in-training, 9-going-on-60 year old brother is spectacular, and humbling. 
 This book. THIS book. It is amazing. It is broken and tender and loving and lost and I am better for knowing Bear and Otter and the Kid's story. I want to hug each of them, and make their sorrows cease, but I don't have to because they can do that even better than I can. 
 This a romance, but it is also a story, an epic poem of love lost and gained and squandered and regained. I loved every one of the words. Even the bad words, even the hate, because it made the love that much more beautiful.