Grumpy Bear

Grumpy Bear (2021) Slade James (Bear Camp)

Coleman Sawyer runs a gay clothing optional camp.

Luke Cody is headed back to the south after yet another bad relationship, and another failure to launch his career as a singer-songwriter. When he’s told there’s temporary work at Bear Mountain Lodge that might help him land on his feet, he takes it, but feels out of place surrounded by burly, musclebound, mostly-naked men.

This is really an adorable story, and I quite enjoyed it–even as the characters were absolutely surrounded by casual sex.

So what did I love?

First, Luke is clearly (although not named as such) a demi-sexual.

I didn’t really do hookups. I required an emotional connection.

Second, Luke is adorable.

A lot of times, it was like I stood behind myself, observing and listening, cringing at my inability to tone down the perkiness. To not be so aggressively friendly.

Third, there were fantastic secondary characters.

It never failed to unnerve me that my general manager was a ten-year-old girl trapped in the body of a two-hundred-and-sixty-five-pound, forty-something lumberjack.

And the setting was gorgeous as well, which I loved.

Whitewater tumbled down shelves of ink-black rock, falling twenty feet into a small pool as deep and wide as the manmade one down the holler. Trace copper deposits turned the water an insane blue-green. Nobody could build a pool that looked like this.

Oh, did you catch that?

I was forever cursing Wayne for putting the pool at the bottom of the holler, right in the bend of the creek, and expecting the water to go around it.

Multiple correct uses of the word holler!

I will, however admit, that the cover bothers me, because musclebound men are definitely not my thing.

This story was a lot of fun, and extremely well-done AND there was no Stupid Big Misunderstanding!

Rating: 8/10

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