Why I read it: I’m a fan of KA Mitchell and I have enjoyed the previous two novellas in the series.

What it’s about: (from Goodreads) Life doesn’t come with a syllabus.

Ethan knows firsthand that long distance is hard on love. If Wyatt is spending his summer at an internship in Pittsburgh, that’s where Ethan will be. Even if it means inventing his own career goal just to find a reason to stay with his boyfriend. He didn’t expect they’d be living in a hot, crappy apartment, with work schedules that keep them apart more than together.

Wyatt’s past has taught him to keep his head down and focus on living through the day. Loving Ethan has him looking to the future for the first time; he’s just not in as big of a rush to get there. It’s hard to trust in happiness when life has been busy kicking you in the nuts.

Together they’re getting the hang of real life, when a new responsibility for Wyatt throws everything off balance. Ethan’s doing everything he can to prove he’s in this forever, while Wyatt is torn between a future with Ethan and a debt to the past. Too bad they didn’t cover this in college.

What worked for me (and what didn’t): Most of Relationship Status takes place over the course of a summer where Ethan and Wyatt are sharing a room in a small apartment together in Pittsburgh while working and interning. Wyatt is interning at a prestigious engineering firm and Ethan at the ACLU – because there is the vague possibility he might want to be a lawyer but mostly because he wants to be near Wyatt. Between their jobs and internships, there is not a lot of time for them to spend together and when things start off, there is some tension between the pair because of the whole “ships passing in the night” thing.

Also, as usual Ethan is pressing for long term commitment (this seems familiar – in my scenario, I am Ethan and my hubs is Wyatt). Wyatt is much more go with the flow. He doesn’t have any intention of splitting up with Ethan but he thinks it’s too early for the kind of commitment Ethan seems to crave – they’re only 19 after all. (In my case, it wasn’t age; it was more about me wanting things locked down and my hubs being content to stay in the moment. But then we got married and now we’re both happy! :D)

There isn’t any serious trouble between them but Wyatt does feel some pressure from Ethan to move faster than he’s comfortable with.

What I was most interested in actually was Ethan deciding what he’d like to do with his life. He went to Coborn College to be near Blake, his former boyfriend. He’s at the ACLU interning because he wants to be near Wyatt. What does Ethan actually want? Unfortunately, I wasn’t entirely convinced that Ethan had a passion for a particular career and at the end I wasn’t entirely sure what he was planning to do with his degree after college. Perhaps he didn’t want to be passionate about his career. Perhaps he just wants to be passionate about Wyatt. That’s okay I guess but I think it would be a strain on a relationship to be all things all the time for one person. Just my take.

The trouble that is between Wyatt and Ethan and what eventually calms things down is solved by sex. Lots of sex. Don’t get me wrong, KA Mitchell writes very good sex. It’s hot and it’s also emotional, showing the connection between the couple. But I didn’t really get how this sex actually fixed anything in the relationship.

On the plus side, Ethan does experience Wyatt doing some of the chasing this time and I think *that* gave Ethan some comfort. Also, before that, Ethan was forced by circumstances to take a step back from pressing his suit and this helped too.

I also enjoyed getting to know Uncle Owen and his partner, Christine more. They jumped off the page in their characterisations.

What else? I admit I took two goes to get into the story. On the second try however, I found it a fairly breezy read, in that I was happy to continue and when I had to put it down, I looked forward to picking it back up again. I’m not sure a lot actually happened – I’d have liked to have seen more of the relationship development apart from the sex, but it was nonetheless entertaining to spend more time with Ethan and Wyatt.