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Decisions (Drop Dead, book 3)
Peter Styles
Four stars

Well, I asked for it.

Geo and Lex are working on their relationship, learning how to live together, and having a great time producing their podcast about true crime, called “Creep Corner.�� Sharing their apartment with Geo’s twin brother Mark and his boyfriend Andrew has things a little close, but they’re coping.

Then Robert Durand, Geo and Mark’s father, calls. He has a luxurious vacation in Aspen to dangle in front of them, and does his best to convince his sons to join him.

As I finished the last book, the second of the “Drop Dead�� series, I said in my review that I really wanted to understand exactly why Geo’s gay father is such a terrible person. Well, that’s what Lex wants to know, too. Lex never had anything remotely like a safe childhood, or a father, and he can’t fathom how Robert could have alienated both of his children so completely. He doesn’t understand why Geo won’t tell him what happened. For him, having a rich gay dad who wants to take you on vacation would be a fantasy.

And this is the crux of this book: learning just who Robert Durand really is, and what he did to turn his boys against him. In doing this, we learn why Geo is who he is. Frankly, Geo is an annoying character to me, but by the end of this book I’d begun to cut him a lot of slack. And so has Lex.

“I was used to people liking my father more than they liked me. It was the same story with most of the people in my life—they always liked someone near me more than they liked me.�� There is a huge inferiority complex bubbling beneath Geo’s handsome skin. Little by little, he reveals, to Lex and to the reader, how his parents, even when divorced, managed to strip away this young man’s sense of self-worth. By the end, I had grown to admire Geo’s resilience, and his ability to be kind and loving in spite of what he’d experienced.

Styles�� point is not to slam rich people; but simply to demonstrate how poverty and wealth are not the only critical factors in shaping a young person’s life. Book 2 was about Lex, and ended with Lex and Geo becoming closer, as friends and as lovers. Book 3 takes us farther down that road, and it was a tougher road than I expected.

This book left me rather sad, but also encouraged about Geo and Lex. OK, Mr. Styles, bring on Book 4. You may say these books can be read independently, but I think they work very well as a series, and let the reader build up a big picture of our damaged heroes.