As with Desert Sons I thought that this book had a lot of strong interesting points along with a few downfalls. Starting with the downfalls I guess the biggest one for me would have to be the over-narrative backgrounds for the secondary characters. Although it is nice to know their motivations, sometimes it was just a bit too much. Also, some of the narrative was...well...a little too narrative, especially at the beginning of the book. What is that saying, "show don't tell"? Another, much smaller drawback was that there were a few grammatical errors where a little more editing would have been useful, but this wasn't horribly invasive to the reading.

However, once again like Desert Sons, the further you get into the story, the smoother everything seems to go. There were parts of the story that made me want to cringe, not in a bad way, but because of what was going on and because I was that into the story.

Also, I do like both the characters of Scott and Ryan. Both of them have their faults and their strengths. Many of the secondary characters were interesting in their own way and I especially liked the scene between Scott and his best friend, Doug, in the bleachers. I did feel that Preston kind of got lost in the dust at the end of the story and that there might have been one last scene missing that he could have been in to finish it off.

The climactic scene at the end of the story was certainly worth the reading of the book. It was very intense and I felt quite anxious for the characters. That particular part was very well told and worth a star all on its own.

Once again with this sequel I think this author has given us a very down to earth and realistic look at contemporary gay issues and teenagers, although not necessarily what I would consider young adult literature due to graphic content. Overall a very good read which will most likely retain a spot on my "keeper" shelf. ( )