Thorns by Roscoe G. Beetle

Genre: Sci-fi, Dark Romance

Age rating: Ages 18+ Only

Content warnings: Domestic violence, drug use, dubious consent, homicidal ideation, homophobic slurs, stalking, suicidal ideation

Available in Print and PDF

You might like this book if you enjoy:

-Gay, sci-fi romance

-Messy, dysfunctional romance

-Characters with lots of baggage

-Themes of ageing, loneliness, and unhealthy fixations

-Waffle House brawls

The summary for Thorns describes the romance as "sinking deeper into beautiful mutually assured destruction", which is the line that made me press the "add to cart" button. After reading, I can confirm, it's an apt description for how the romance in this book goes down, making it a great change of pace from my usual gay romance reads.

Thorns starts with Roy, a bear who runs freight across the solar system. As a cost-saving measure from his company, he's completely alone for most of his 2-month long route, which makes him severely isolated and depressed. During one of his stops, Roy meets Sam, a manipulative rabbit who spends his nights searching for young guys to coerce into sleeping with him. After saving Sam from a gay bashing at a waffle house and spending a night together, Roy becomes unhealthily attached to Sam, and the two begin seeing each other every 2 months when Roy returns on his route. But his visits aren't exactly idyllic as, despite feeling inexplicably drawn together, both men have their own demons that seem bent on clashing every time they meet.

As you can probably imagine, this is a very character-driven story, and both main characters are absolute messes in desperate need of therapy. Sam is manipulative, scummy, and standoffish while Roy is naive, obsessive, and prone to dangerous bouts of anger. Yet Sam and Roy, despite their unlikable aspects, also have a sympathetic side to them. They're both devoid of hope, ageing into their 50s with terrible dead-end careers and self-destructive habits they just can't kick. I think most readers can relate to those feelings on some level. We've all felt injustice in our day jobs and grappled with our own self destructive habits. That relatability made me want to see where Roy and Sam's paths would lead instead of finding them too insufferable to follow.

The dynamic between these two is also absolutely wild. Roy is obsessed with Sam, longing for him to an unhealthy degree, and when Sam tries to put up boundaries, he lashes out in frustration. Sam, meanwhile, hasn't met anyone who genuinely wanted to be with him in a long time, and thus can't keep himself away from Roy despite acknowledging that he could literally be killed by him. It reminds me of (admittedly less extreme) dysfunctional relationships I've seen in real life, so there were more than a few moments in this book that brought back memories for me that made the whole book feel more realistic.

I will say that I was a bit underwhelmed by the sci-fi elements of this story. This is a story that could almost happen in a modern day setting, and it feels sometimes like the sci-fi aspect is only there to keep Roy and Sam completely isolated from each other in the 2 months Roy is on his route, since there isn't a cell phone signal in deep space. The whole thing taking place in space does help add to the cruelty of Roy's isolation, thus deepening the theme of loneliness. However, it was still in the back of my mind that about 95% of what happens here could have happened in a contemporary setting. Personally, I was fine with this, because I love themes, but I could see other readers feeling that the story doesn't do enough to justify its sci-fi setting.

I'm glad to have read Thorns after reading so many traditional gay romances. I feel like my horizons have been broadened, though I might need something sweet to cleanse my pallet after this one. I highly recommend it to people who are looking for flawed character studies, or who are looking for something a bit more gritty in their romance stories.