4.5 stars! 
 ***I received a free copy from the Publisher, through NetGalley, in exchange for my honest review.*** 
 True Colors is a story about finding yourself and accepting who you are; it's about learning to forgive, about learning to trust again after being hurt, about second chances; it's about love and how healing true love can be; how it can help you pick up your broken pieces and make you whole again. 
 It's Marco Brandt's story. 
 Marco sees people in 
 colors 
 (kind of like his mama did). Each person to him is a color. Each color is linked to a feeling that person represents to him. 
 Blue for sadness, green for hope, olive for peacefulness, yellow for happiness, scarlet for lust, magenta for love... 
 Marco's color is 
 salmon 
 - the color for cowardice... because Marco is afraid of a lot of things... 
 Marco has always liked guys... but nobody knows that - not his Papa, his Opa, or, even, his friends! Marco is very close to his family and he is afraid of disappointing them ... so he is stuck in the closet. Even if he doesn't want to... 
 "I want to let my guard down and be myself." 
 Then, there's Oskar - Marco's first color... 
 Marco and Oskar were childhood best friends and extremely close... But, one day everything changed... 
 "... he used to be sunglow yellow. My happy, my everything. 
 Now he's rust. Dark, burnt-orange rust. A color to throw away." 
 They're neighbors, but Marco hasn't Seen Oskar in 15 months, since he left town for College. 
 Their families are friends and spend a lot of time together. 
 Zoe - Oskar's 16 years old sister - is kind of a little sister to Marco too. 
 So, when Zoe excitedly tells Marco that Oskar is coming back home, Marco's afraid... afraid of seeing Oskar again, afraid of getting hurt... 
 "The smile tipping the corners of his mouth. It's been years since I've seen it. My stomach clenches traitorously and I white-knuckle the doorframe. I gaze at his slightly upturned lips that hold the memories of a hundred songs we sang between us, tens of plays, a handful of secrets, and six soul-destroying words." 
 Marco's Papa is directing his Mama's last written play, in her memory (as he's been doing every year since she passed away)... and he asked Oskar to be a part of it! 
 So, Forced to be in the same play together, Marco and Oskar have to get their act together and deal with being around each other, which is hard because Marco absolutely hates Oskar... 
 But... Is hate ALL Marco feels for Oskar?! 
 Oskar wants nothing more than to fix things between them and go back to being friends. 
 But, that is easier said than done! ... Something happened when they were 16, that tore them apart. And, 4 years later, Marco still can't get past it. 
 "We're broken." 
 "Marco. What I did--what I didn't do--I regret it every day." 
 What happened 4 years ago? Can Marco go back to being Oskar's friend? Or is their friendship too broken to fix? 
 And Will Marco ever find the courage to come out to his family and friends?! 
 Read the book to find out :) 
 ************************************* 
 I really liked this book! 
 The book initially starts when Marco is only 12 years old... and then the story gets fast forward 7 and a half years, to when Marco is 20. I didn't like this very much because I thought it would take away on the feels of the book... gladly, it did not! 
 As the book is told in Marco's POV, we get to experience in first person what happened that made Marco hate Oskar. And I did really feel it .. It brought tears to my eyes :'-( 
 We got some flashbacks... not many, I would have liked to have seen them more as teens. 
 And I would have liked to read Oskar's POV (a double POV or at least a chapter in his POV). 
 Still, what I loved in this book was the relationship between Marco and Oskar - it was SO WELL DEVELOPTED - NO INSTA LOVE HERE! :) 
 I loved Marco. He was so realistic. His fears and his lack of confidence were really understandable and realistic after what he experienced in his life. And his struggle with telling people he is gay... even to close friends, he was so afraid of not being accepted, of being treated differently... and that is so heartbreaking. 
 I also loved the sense of family in this book. They were all so close, so loving and, still, real, not perfect. 
 And Marco and Oskar together were just so SWEET, but HOT at the same time, too (there were messages in bottles and writting initials in a tree, and, also, some spicy scenes). I loved them as a couple. 
 So, if you like gay romance books with a bit of angst and deepness, then this is Definitely the book for you! Give it a try... I know I will be taking a look at this author's other books :)