Mia Kerick
Released: April 2, 2014
5 Star Review
In his junior year at a public high school, sweet, bright Casey Minton’s biggest worry isn’t being gay. Keeping from being too badly bullied by his so-called friends, a group of girls called the Queen Bees, is more pressing. Nate De Marco has no friends, his tough home life having taken its toll on his reputation, but he’s determined to get through high school. Zander Zane’s story is different: he’s popular, a jock. Zander knows he’s gay, but fellow students don’t, and he’d like to keep it that way.
No one expects much when these three are grouped together for a class project, yet in the process the boys discover each other’s talents and traits, and a new bond forms. But what if Nate, Zander, and Casey fall in love—each with the other and all three together? Not only gay but also a threesome, for them high school becomes infinitely more complicated and maybe even dangerous. To survive and keep their love alive, they must find their individual strengths and courage and stand together, honest and united. If they can do that, they might prevail against the Queen Bees and a student body frightened into silence—and even against their own crippling fears.
Junior year high school student, Casey biggest worry isn't being gay, his bigger problem is trying not to be bullied by a group of girls called The Queen Bees. His parents know that he is gay and are very open to his lifestyle and he is very close to his sisters who are also very accepting of him being gay. His mom is very protective of him ever since the incident that happened to him earlier in life.
Nate has a very tough home life and he doesn't really have any friends to speak of. His parents aren't around and he has to live with a very abusive uncle and he takes it as he is trying to protect his little sister from the same abuse. He knows he's gay but he is not out to his family or anyone.
Zander has a completely different story as he is very popular and the jock of the school. Zander also knows he is gay but he keeps that hidden very well as he's not out to anyone in his life. The story is told through 3 unique points of view which was so interesting and fun to read which I enjoyed immensely. Nate tells his story through his diary! Zander's feelings show up in emails to his brother. Casey's story is shown in real time and just trying to survive The Queen Bee's and the support he receives from 2 guys he would have never expected would be there for him.
When the three boys are put together for a school project, nothing seems strange of that. When the boys get together they have found themselves bonding over similarities that they were not aware of. Now what if the three boys...Casey, Nate and Zander fall in love with each other and all three boys together? They're gay and in a threesome, high school has become more difficult and possibly dangerous. Now they must bond together to survive and protect their love and fight against The Queen Bee's and their own fears.
I just loved this beautiful story that the author gave us in Us Three! Her message about bullying and just don't watch it happen but get involved and help and aid the ones being bullied. I really enjoyed this YA/MMM book and how the author told the story and her detailed writing of these fascinating and beautiful characters. I enjoyed how the story is told in 3 POV of the characters and was not confusing at all but brilliantly written and a joy to read. It was great to read an mmm novel and told through the eyes of the YA characters and what they meant to each other and how their threesome bond will get them through their most difficult challenges. I highly and I mean highly recommend this novel...Us Three by Mia Kerick! If you love reading about love, loyalty, angst, bonding, MMM, YA and coming of age stories than this is the book for you!
I DON’T know why I gravitated back to those girls when I returned to school this year. Maybe it was because they were constantly pressuring me to hang around with them, spouting all their sunshine-y “let’s just forgive and forget” speeches, and I was too weak to tell them to take a hike. Maybe I was scared of what they’d do to me if I ignored them (which had been my original plan). And then there was the way they always clustered around me in the halls, in the lunchroom, grabbing onto my wrists and dragging me along in their wake. That kind of attention was hard to resist, okay? But if I was going to be completely honest with myself, I’d admit that they were all probably just curious about the novelty of “Casey, the gay recluse,” who’d disappeared from the face of the earth a year and a half ago. Even more likely, they were gloating in the certain knowledge that they’d been a sufficiently mighty squad to actually drive the lone queer boy right out of Benjamin Franklin High School. I mean, that’s quite an accomplishment to have under your belt at the tender age of fourteen.
Why did he leave? Where had he gone? What had he been doing all this time? Inquiring minds wanted to know.
But then maybe it was far less dramatic than all that. Maybe I found myself back with the mean girls because no one else would have me. And sitting alone all the time sucked.
There wasn’t a guy at our school who was secure enough in his manhood to publicly be my friend. So when I came back, the guys forged on with their usual macho position, as if I hadn’t missed even a day of school, let alone eighteen months. Their attitude in regard to me could easily be summed up like this: “Talk to the paw, candy-ass.”
Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I even still had to change my clothes in a toilet stall before and after gym class, just like I’d done freshman year. If I didn’t, all the guys accused me of checking them out when they had their shirts off. As if….
But a couple of guys got stuck working with me on our French Cuisine project. I really had no clue how I felt about working with these two—maybe a mix of relieved that I’m not with the Queen Bees, and nervous that I was collaborating academically with Mr. Pop-Jock and Dr. Frankenstein’s monster’s better-looking brother. I was definitely nervous. I didn’t want trouble with them, you know. If a group of girls could take me down the way they did, with such ease, I could only imagine what Nate the Scary and Zander’s gang of “in-crowd” athletes could do to me. So, I tried not to look at either of these guys directly in the eye. That way they couldn’t accuse me of flirting. Or of wanting them desperately.

Mia focuses her stories on the emotional growth of troubled men and their relationships, and she believes that sex has a place in a love story, but not until it is firmly established as a love story. As a teen, Mia filled spiral-bound notebooks with romantic tales of tortured heroes (most of whom happened to strongly resemble lead vocalists of 1980s big-hair bands) and stuffed them under her mattress for safekeeping. She is thankful to Dreamspinner Press for providing her with an alternate place to stash her stories.
Mia is proud of her involvement with the Human Rights Campaign and cheers for each and every victory made in the name of marital equality. Her only major regret: never having taken typing or computer class in school, destining her to a life consumed with two-fingered pecking and constant prayer to the Gods of Technology.
My themes I always write about:
Sweetness. Unconventional love, tortured/damaged heroes- only love can save them.