Controlled Burn

McLellan’s flimsy debut erotic romance dives deep into angst. High school senior Jared Smith innocently texted his boyfriend, who was driving at the time; while reading the text, the young man crashed his car and died. Jared was outed, blamed, and all but abandoned by his family. Three years later, Jared, now in college in Oklahoma, has changed his name to Joel and uses sex with strangers to dull the pain. When a chance assignment stirs up Joel’s tragic past, his flamboyant classmate Paulie helps him through it. Despite Joel’s fears of opening up to another person, Paulie quickly becomes a vital part of Joel’s life. The pair stumble their way through familial difficulties, the rigors of college life, and Joel’s fear of commitment. Moments of pure sweetness and connection between Joel and Paulie are vastly outnumbered by their frequent trips to the bedroom, which eventually get boring. The plot serves merely as a loose framework for cleverly written but repetitive sensual scenes, much to the detriment of character development. (Aug.)