I DNFed this one at only 12%. I just couldn't get on board with Ted's desperation to win his cheating husband back. I'm sure he grows and learns to value himself at the end, but I wasn't invested enough to see it through.

This was my first novel by British author Matt Cain and I was not disappointed. Becoming Ted is the touching story of a 43 yo gay man named Ted who is navigating the path of major life changes. We get a front row seat into Ted’s life, experiencing a devastating breakup from a long time emotionally abusive parter and watching him spin the negative by exploring parts of life he was always too afraid, scared or discouraged from doing. Ted is a people pleaser trying to reframe his mind to please the most important person, himself.

While navigating his personal growth, he continues working and being groomed by his seemingly overbearing, but complex parents to take over the family business he isn’t sure he has the passion for. Ted has a fun best friend named Denise and a growing relationship with a sweet man named Oskar, both going through their own growth we get a front row seat for.

The development of our cast of characters is well detailed. I enjoyed meeting and learning about their lives and experiencing their emotions and quirks. Cain does a great job of bringing them all to life on paper and painting the scenes around them. By the middle of the book I was emotionally invested in most of the characters and couldn’t get enough of the story. The last few chapters had me in tears and it takes a bit to move me like that on paper. I didn’t want it to end. I resonated a lot with our main character making it a special read for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for giving me the opportunity to provide an unbiased review.

Thank you to NetGalley and the Publisher for this ARC.

Sometimes a book comes to you exactly at the right time. As soon as I saw Becoming Ted I knew I had to request it because of how much I enjoyed "The Secret Life of Albert Entwistle". I didn't look too much into what this novel was about but because of my enjoyment of Albert but I knew I absolutely had to read it. So, it was a surprise to me when I started to read this book and see that what was going on with Ted was also going on with me in a figurative sense. I didn't have a divorce or become a drag queen but I am going through a period where I am deciding it's okay to say no and put myself and mental health first. I have had a skewed sense of life and what it means to be okay with myself.

Ted Ainsworth's life was turned upside down and shifted one morning when he found pictures of another man on his husbands phone. But from that he became the person he always wanted t0 be. There are so many good messages that I found while reading this story such as You are important and it's never to late to follow your dreams. This book was so cozy and made me want to go and do things I have only dreamed of. I loved the setting of this story and the writing was splendid.