Cut Both Ways by Carrie Mesrobian

Will Caynes never has been good with girls. At seventeen, he’s still waiting for his first kiss. He’s certainly not expecting it to happen in a drunken make-out session with his best friend, Angus. But it does and now Will’s conflicted—he knows he likes girls, but he didn’t exactly hate kissing a guy.

Then Will meets Brandy, a cute and easy-to-talk-to sophomore. He’s totally into her too—which proves, for sure, that he’s not gay. So why does he keep hooking up with Angus on the sly?

Will knows he can’t keep seeing both of them, but besides his new job in a diner, being with Brandy and Angus are the best parts of his whole messed-up life. His divorced parents just complicate everything. His father, after many half-baked business ventures and endless house renovations, has started drinking again. And his mom is no help—unless loading him up with a bunch of stuff he doesn’t need plus sticking him with his twin half-sisters counts as parenting. He’s been bouncing between both of them for years, and neither one feels like home.

Deciding who to love, who to choose, where to live. Whichever way Will goes, someone will get hurt. Himself, probably the most.

I received a review copy from readingteen.net

This is a story about a boy who finds himself attracted to a boy and a girl at the same time. It starts off with his first kiss, which ends up being with his best friend Angus, which surprises him. While he is still questioning what happened between himself and Angus, he meets Brandy. He instantly falls for Brandy. Going between Angus and Brandy, Will explores his sexuality and how comfortable he feels being with each person. Will is a child of a divorce and spends his time going between each parents house. His mother has remarried and he has little sisters. His father, trying his best to focus on the positive things, but always distracting himself than what his focus in life should be.

While we learn some about all of the people in Will's lives, I found it very hard to really get invested into the characters in this story. The idea behind how you can be attracted to different people, and how that can be confusing  is relayed in the book. Yet I did not agree with the main character and his flip flopping every chapter from Angus to Brandy. Let's face it he's a cheater.

There is insta love, a lot of detailed sex scenes and this attitude from Will that he justifies his actions because of his not being able to understand completely what he is going through. In which I have to say that the constant sex really took away from the deeper stories within the novel. I don't mind sex in novels, I just feel that this one over did it with the bedroom scenes. I felt I wanted more from his family relationships.

Brandy turned out to be my favorite character, but I really liked the realness to what Will's father was going through as well. I think that this story as a lot to tell and gives the reader several things to think about. I just kept getting too distracted from the real storylines too often to really enjoy this novel.