J.S. Strange
One More Chapter
9 April 2026
485
eBook - EPUB
Dystopian Fantasy
ARC via NetGalley
Ganymede’s is no ordinary boarding school. Behind its spiral towers and manicured lawns, boys are forged into the men society demands – strong, obedient, perfect. Graduate, and the world is yours: a home, a career, a wife. But fail… and you’re no longer useful to society.
For Dylan Cecil it should be simple: keep his head down, survive graduation, and earn his place. But when his friend, Blake, disappears, Dylan can’t silence the questions gnawing at him, even as whispers of danger shadow the school’s gilded halls.
As June’s trials close in – eight tests that will decide who is worthy of manhood – Dylan is haunted by Blake’s absence and drawn to Roman Edwards, a boy as magnetic as he is unknowable.
In a world rebuilt on order and obedience, Dylan must decide: will he become the man the academy wants – or the man he really is?
The Boyfriend Academy had a really fresh and original premise. That was what first drew me to request a review copy, and the idea in and of itself did work well in the book. It covered some interesting themes and explored several key societal issues. Given that, I wanted to like it more than I did, but unfortunately it did have some issues. At nearly 500 pages this was a reasonably long read, and sometimes it felt it. Some chapters I was engaged, but in others I found myself becoming bored and wishing things would move along a little faster. Dylan was a fairly well rounded character, but everyone else, even Roman, felt a little under-explored. Likewise, the world building felt a bit lacking in places. There were some holes in the explanations and I still had questions when the book ended. The ending itself could be taken as an end, but it also left the possibility of a sequel, so it was hard to know what the author's intentions were, unless the ambiguity was to give them the freedom to decide whether or not to write more later. In the end, I have decided to rate this as a 3.5-star read. I did have some issues with the way the text was executed, but the idea behind the story was good, so it is worth a look for that alone.
I received this book as a free eBook ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
No comments:
Post a Comment