** spoiler alert ** 
 The premise behind this book is one I'm usually a sucker for - one main character does/says something to the other main character that changes his (or her) life for the worse then does his/her best to make amends once they find out what happened. While Purgatory has the first part of that, the second (and my favorite) part just didn't materialize. 
 We see Luc freak out over Reese's pass; we see him apologize for the original behavior, but, when Luc learns that Reese hit a downward spiral after the rejection that shoved him all the way to the back of the closet where it was "safe." Instead of seeing/hearing Luc being remorseful and trying to make amends, we just see Luc swooping in for the sex he passed on 6 years earlier then going to all those "safe" parts of Reese's life and removing them leaving Reese outed with no job. While this ultimately does turn out for the best for Reese (and I normally hate when a MC looks to another with plans of moving on, but I was giddy when Reese made plans with Jimmy - glad they didn't come to fruition, but also glad Reese wasn't sitting around pining), it came across as a little petty when it seemed to happen because Reese wouldn't ditch his life to run off to Italy with Luc. 
 It could have been that Luc came back specifically for Reese and truly had his best interests at heart, but we don't know that. I think getting Luc's POV likely would have bumped this up a star so for me, but we didn't. What saved it from being "bad" instead of "okay" were two scenes. The first was when Luc seemed completely shocked to learn that Reese gave up his art and went straight; there was a smidgen of a hint there that he may have been back for Reese and wasn't sure how to handle learning that the Reese he came back for was gone. The second was the ending scene which I won't spoil. 
 Overall, Purgatory was a decent book - not bad, but not what it *could* have been, either.