Shabby -BookBistroBlog's Reviews > Tryst Six Venom

What a fantastic way to honor 🏳️‍🌈 Pride Month🏳️‍🌈 than by reading a trope I haven't touched before. TBH I was quite apprehensive of popping my FF romance cherry, but the fact that it's a romance & gender shouldn't play a factor in love and secondly, Pen is a pretty hardass author. She rarely pulls punches or writes for the masses. She writes from her gut and her style is scathing and sharp when needed, yet treated with compassion and understanding. These just sealed the deal and I'm now sat here, having closed the book wondering HOW can I go about my life now after having journeyed through this phenomenal story. It's like this book has given me glasses to see the world around me more clearly. My senses are hyper aware now.
This book comes at a crucial time where the outside world turmoil needs to be quieted by mind broadening discussions and honest, sensible dialogues, directed towards closed minds. Hopefully change starters here.
This is such a book.
I've always seen Pen as an author who has improved and grown with every book. My trust in her writing deepens with every book of hers that I pick up.
I will not talk a single word about the book, only about what it meant to me, and the Most Important lesson I learnt today. Life is short.... "This could be it" .



There's Two Girls in Marymount High Clay Collins- Homecoming Queen. Prom Queen. Omega Chi sweetheart, and something nice to look at. . She belongs to an affluent, projectedly perfect world where Rich hold the power and facades are flawless at the cost of one's truth and integrity.
She's a product of her biased and artificial environment
And there's Olivia Jaeger, a girl who has 5 brothers and no parents, living across the tracks from Clay, in the Sanoa Swamp.



This book has created quite the polarized opinionated buzz in indielandia. My advice to those opposing it merely on the fact that it's FF romance- Stuff it and read.
This book is SO MUCH MORE than sex it's about LOVE and relationships and family and abandonment issues and emotional and physical loss, about fear of acceptance and fear of public humiliation and entitled brats and hardworking siblings...Omg there's SO MUCH TO BE EXPLORED!!!
"Sanoa Bay is an unincorporated neighborhood of St. Carmen, but it may as well be the moon. They’re Saints. We’re Swamp. We share a zip code. That’s it."
There's also this constant struggle betweenHaves and Have Nots two completely opposing lifestyles on either side of the tracks. The difference might as well be between two worlds. Their trials are polar opposites even when inhabiting the same town, same city, same state.
“the more I look around at the world, Clay, the more I realize that villains are a lot more complicated than we want them to be. Sometimes, they’re just people who are really afraid.”
An everyday battle to be accepted by the society to just step out of the boundaries of prescribed norms and not be limited to a box that you have to tick.
"I’ll be dead someday.
Done.
Never to speak or love or kiss again.
What will I regret? What if I’m alone?"
For the first time I felt uneducated and ashamed about some of the things members of LGBTQ face every single moment of their existence. Perceptions and prejudices hurled at them. Their tender souls stripped of their armors to bear the brunt of homophobic barbs persistently, it just brought a steady stream of tears streaming from my soul throughout the story.
"I was just angry. Jealous. I want her, I can’t have her, and I’m angry that I can’t have her. So I take it out on her."



In the first half of the book I was completely enamored by Olivia. Her bravado, her strength just blew me away.
The second half showcased more of Clay's struggle with her mother and Mimi, keeping up with their expectations, trying to suppress her wants and desires to maintain the family legacy.
There's too many topics spotlighted through this topical, relevant story. The societal hypocrisy, high school toxic atmosphere filled with bigotry, peer pressure and venomous hate.
But one person who was the object of my obsession (I want more of him Pen!!!) - My heart just cried buckets everytime Macon came in the scene. His stoic personality, his "sees all, handles all" character, his sincere love for his siblings and tireless devotion for his family...it just broke me. His uphill battles & sacrifice increased my admiration for him tenfold.
I can babble on and on till the gators crawl out, but I'll INSIST..nay DEMAND that all of genuine book lovers Read. This. Book.
Pen says Perfect doesn't exist, it never did. Well...this book is damn near perfect I say..
It's important, it's crucial, if we want to have better understandings of the world around us.
You ain't a romance reader if you don't accept romance in all its colorful glory!!



5 stars for Heart, Heart, Head
Follow me on:
Email🌻 Bookbub 🌻 Twitter🌻 Instagram🌻 Blog🌻 Facebook🌻 Amazon 🌻