And I Wonder What Comes Next – A Review of All This Time by J. Clark

All This Time is a spicy new adult, romance novel written by sizzling romance author J. Clark. The story is about two college kids, who’ve known each other since middle school, Michelle and Osirion. Their relationship has grown from a friendship, to mutual crushes, and finally to passionate lovers. The conflict here is that there are vast cultural differences between the two, and only one family is open to the cultural differences. Michelle is Black and comes from a strict Christian home. Her father is a pastor, running for public office. Osirion is Japanese and practices Shintoism, but his parents are pretty laid back.

The story takes place in present day Atlanta, predominantly on a college campus. The author drops reminders throughout, how hot and humid Atlanta can be. This contributes to the mood and tone of the story—heat is ever present, physically and emotionally.
 
The tale opens with Michelle and Osirion on the phone discussing a gift that he sent to her. From the gate, it is clear to readers that the lines of their relationship are blurred. They openly discuss being turned on and self-pleasuring, and directly on the heels of that one or both of them will say “we’re just friends.” Friendships between men and women exist where there is a hint of attraction and sometimes blatant attraction. I wonder, though, how often men and women are that open with each other, let alone with the same sex bestie, when it comes to deep sexual desires. As the story plays out, the big question is “will they ever be together?” I kept thinking, “why not?” Michelle seems to be holding on to what her father might think. On one hand she seems fearful, yet and still she has no problem talking dirty to her male “best friend.” She’s a walking contradiction, which made it somewhat hard for me to like her. Osirion was ready to go the entire time, even when he had a different girlfriend. There was never any question about where Osirion’s head was at in the game of love, and I think for that matter I enjoyed his character more.
 
There were a lot of unexpected interactions in this story. As aforementioned, Michelle and Osirion were heavy on the “best friends” narrative as a front, while consistently taking flirting to the next level. Aside from that, some of the conversations that adults and elders had with the young friends were odd an unexpected as well. For example, a particular character has a reputation for not only being well-endowed, but also having no skill or finesse with it, and everyone in the story talks about it, including church elders. An male relative of a victim of this character’s lack of delicacy, warns Michelle of possibly physically destroyed if she was to be intimate with this character. Though I sit and read on my couch, my breath was taken away with that scene. I couldn’t imagine one of my uncles discussing my sex life with a peer, but there are all different types of people in this world and nothing is impossible.
 
While I wasn’t crazy about Michelle’s character, I will say that the characters were very well-developed. Unlikeable, doesn’t mean unlayered, and just because I didn’t like Michelle doesn’t mean no one does (or will). Each character had a distinct personality, which is sometimes hard for authors to pull off because truth be told, there is always a piece of us in all of our characters. The only flaw within each character’s actions, was how everyone explicitly discussed sex, with everyone. No one had boundaries, and I found that a little unrealistic.

J. Clark’s approach to the spicy scenes deserves a round of applause. The scenes had intriguing yet imaginable flows. The language used to create the images was remarkable and spot on. Creating relatable mind-blowing sex scenes is not easy at all. Yet J. Clark made it look like a walk in the park.
 
J. Clark had a lot to share with readers in this story, and I hope I am at least close with the hidden messages I think I deciphered. The most important is that love is boundless. Michelle and Osirion were from vastly different cultures, and still they found love and passion with each other. I also think that J. Clark wanted readers to be comfortable with who they are and believe that if they want to, they can and will find a match. There is someone for everyone and sometimes we find our match in the least expected places. Finally, I also believe that J. Clark wants us to know that when we find that match, it is okay to let your “freak flag” fly, no matter what the colors on it are.
 
On Goodreads, I rated this novel 4/5 stars. I believe this is J. Clark’s second novel, and she did her thing with it. There’s an excerpt at the end of All This Time from an upcoming novel, so expect her to bring it on once again, and I look forward to it.