Review by DMac: What’s the Use of Wondering? by Kate McMurray

What’s the Use of Wondering?, by Kate McMurray
Series: WMU, Book 2
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Release Date: July 3, 2017

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Violinist Logan has spent most of his life training for a career in music. But as the pressure mounts during his junior year, he questions whether playing in an orchestra is the future he wants, or one chosen by his parents. His new roommate—that annoying jerk Peter from last year’s production of Guys and Dolls—complicates matters. Crammed into a dorm room with the overconfident but undeniably hot accounting major, Logan can’t stop snarling.

Then Peter sprains his ankle building sets, and Logan grudgingly agrees to play chauffeur. But instead of putting further strain on their relationship, spending time together reveals some common ground—and mutual frustration. Logan discovers he isn’t the only one who doesn’t know what he wants from life, and the animosity between him and Peter changes keys. But just as the possibility of a happier future appears, Logan gets a dream offer that will take him away from Western Massachusetts University—and Peter. Now he has to decide: will he live the solitary life laid out for him, or hold on to Peter and forge his own path?

M/M Pairing
Gay Characters
New Adult
College
Misunderstandings
Opposites Attract
Roommates

It’s kind of obnoxious that I have to keep pointing this out, but some books, quite frankly, don’t have good writing or editing. Therefore, I feel the need to point out when the writing quality is really good like it was in this book. Maybe you don’t mind, but it’s something that will flip me from being on the fence about a book over to yes. Even if I am whatever about the plot, if the writing is good I can enjoy it a lot more than I would if a book is written not as well.

This book is part of a series, which I did not realize until after I read it, but you don’t need to read the first one to enjoy this one. The characters from that book were in this one, so if you are interested in a coming-out-during-college type book, you might want to read that one first. This book was more of a tale of opposite personalities and forced interactions than any real conflict, and because I’m not super into a lot of drama and conflict in books I enjoyed it a lot. The beginning of the book made it seem like there was going to be a lot of conflict, but it settled down once the book got going.

At first, the rapport between the two MCs put me off, and I thought “oh no I’m going to hate this book” when I wanted to love it! This part took place the semester before the story really starts, so it ended up not shaping the tone of the whole book thankfully. After that the book was super easy to read, and I found it enjoyable.

The term “summer read” is probably overused, but this was a good summer, easy read even though it’s about school. Enjoy the fact that you are done/out of school and read other people having to deal with it instead! This was more about musicals/theater/orchestra/music than kids talking about math or biology anyway. So unless you were a theater kid/bando, this is completely different than your school world was anyway! No dangerous flash backs!!!

I was initially worried that Logan was going to be the stuck up, high brow archetype and that Peter was going to be the artsy one. McMurray did a good job adding a lot of depth and growth to these characters and not just pigeonholing them. It is always frustrating to get a well written book with a great plot that has two-dimensional characters. It’s like, why bother at that point if you aren’t going to develop the characters at all? This is a complaint I have for a lot of non-romance books too, so don’t think I’m just being hard on the genre!

Going to be brutally honest here: This book wasn’t doing anything super new, but it was good and I enjoyed it a lot. I really like books set in college for some reason, and I was glad that this ended up being worth the read. There was, naturally, a misunderstanding, but unlike a lot of books with school age people there wasn’t an epic amount of drama. It was a sweet, easy, well-written read that my review doesn’t do justice.

Kate McMurray writes smart romantic fiction. She likes creating stories that are brainy, funny, and of course sexy, with regular guy characters and urban sensibilities. She advocates for romance stories by and for everyone. When she’s not writing, she edits textbooks, watches baseball, plays violin, crafts things out of yarn, and wears a lot of cute dresses. She’s active in Romance Writers of America, serving for two years on the board of Rainbow Romance Writers, the LGBT romance chapter, and three—including two as president—on the board of the New York City chapter. She lives in Brooklyn, NY, with two cats and too many books.

Her website is http://www.katemcmurray.com/
You can also find her over at https://twitter.com/katemcmwriter