So ... for about the first 40% I was not feeling this book and I couldn't really understand why. It was funny, interesting, well written. I couldn't wait for the MCs to hook up ... everything was in place. But I just didn't get the two main conflicts that shape the story. I didn't feel them, and as a result the characters were likable but hard to connect with. I admire what the author was trying to do with Brandon ... have a religious/gay conflict without being all heavy handed and melodramatic about it. Without dehumanizing the religious figures or turning them into cheap villains. I really appreciated that approach. 
 The issue for me is that Brandon's neurosis has nothing to do with religion at all. Brandon is not repressed, not self-hating, not overloaded with Catholic guilt (BTW, Catholics do not believe gay sex is sinful ... Catholics believe ALL SEX is sinful *heh* Important distinction people!). He doesn't really think there's anything dirty or wrong about being gay ... in fact he's already come out. For about the first half of the book I'm reading words that suggest something completely different than the way the character is behaving and I don't know what to think about that. 
 Then there's the whole anti-Cadsim aspect ... again it doesn't make sense. From the blurb I was expecting Abel and Brandon to be two straight guys disgusted by the fangirls. I expected this to be a GFY story, but what I found was two gay teenagers who claim to be out and proud and yet seem to reject the Cadsim pairing because it makes their favorite characters less manly (???) Huh? I didn't get this either. Roll your eyes at Cadsim because Sim is an android and hot sexy times aren't possible, because the fangirls have little or no interest in any other elements of the show beyond their slash ... but I don't get the suggestion that two gay boys would feel that making a character gay would somehow make them less. Perhaps I can see them secretly feeling that way ... but not the way it was in this book. 
 At 40% though everything changes and we find out things that make these conflicts click into place. (view spoiler)[Brandon is not concerned about going to hell, Brandon is scared of what people will think. He fears disappointing his parents and Father Mike more than he fears God's wrath. It's only once he meets a group of people who appear to approve of his relationship that he discovers the confidence to have the relationship in the first place. And when he finds out that some of those people were just trolls, encouraging him for the lulz, he goes right back to old Brandon. This has nothing to do with God or sin or religion. This is straight up fear of social rejection. 
 The suggestion that Abel and Brandon hate Cadsim so much because they see it as an extension of their own relationship, which they can't admit to themselves is happening ... that's interesting. That makes sense. It doesn't quite work as well as it could (we don't actually see any of Cadmus/Sim's relationship so this conclusion was never going to be natural and intuitive), but it certainly makes more sense than the idea that two happy go lucky teenagers are so self-hating as to think that gay = loser without any other symptoms. (hide spoiler)] 
 Once those issues were settled all the book's strengths turned it into an extremely enjoyable read. Although I do wish I didn't have to wade through half of the book to get there ... Still, enough insight, adorableness and humor to easily earn itself five stars from me. Plus I'm a fangirl at heart :) 
 [Disclosure: This review was written by an author, see my review policy for more information]