I have thought about this book several times per week since I finished it. Love Me Whole by Nicky James is an MM romance about Vaughn and Oryn. They are two men who meet while taking a Marketing night course at the local college. Oryn is a shy 28 year old, who, is bullied heavily by the other students, due their perception of him being “crazy” or “weird”. Vaughn notices the bullying and confronts the students, sticking up for Oryn. Expecting Oryn to thank Vaughn or explain the history between Oryn and the other students, Vaughn is surprised to be left standing alone outside the academic building.

When both are faced with the challenge of finding a partner for the term group project, Vaughn seeks out Oryn, with the hope of learning more about this mysterious person. As they start spending more time together, Oryn warms to Vaughn, but also starts to reveal that there’s much more complexity to his personality than Vaughn expected. As a result of childhood trauma (which is alluded to, not specifically spelled out on the page), Oryn suffers from Dissociative Identity Disorder; his mind is fractured into multiple alters, who front at different times as a method to protect him from experiencing the effects of the trauma.

Unlike movies or horror books, the author portrays DID in such a realistic, non-alarmist way, so that the reader gets a full picture of how it works. Vaughn never sways from his quest to both understand and support Oryn, however he presents himself from moment to moment. It is a story of true, unconditional love, as both characters face their fears and overcome the stark challenge of how to make a partnership work between, essentially, many different people.

When Oryn explains the outer and inner world, I started thinking a lot about my own experiences. Although I don’t have DID, a lot of what he says was definitely more like a mirror than a window. I once had a therapist ask me to invite all of my voices to a table and recognize who was talking at different times during our sessions. That was the first time I was capable of starting to make sense of the noise in my head. Oryn’s main goal with his DID therapy is to encourage his alters to communicate with each other and cohabitate, for the purpose of a peaceful existence. Much like the peace I felt when my therapist provided the imagery in my own therapy sessions, we also start to feel this peace towards the end of the story. The journey to get there is fraught with conflict, doubt, and, in one case, bodily harm, but we do get there eventually.

I wish I remembered the name of the Tik Tok creator, who not only recommended this book, but specifically suggested that the best way to experience it is through audio. The narrator, Adam Gold, depicts each character and alter with such unique composition that I’m not sure I would be capable of tracking the story as well if I were eyeball reading. He truly embodies each voice in such a way that you can visualize and quite literally feel the emotions connected to each alter; whether it’s fear or safety. So, thank you Tik Tok creator, wherever you are! This one was life-changing.

If you’ve read/listened to Love Me Whole by Nicky James, let me know down below! You can check out this and other books by Nicky on her website here. She’s quite the prolific writer, with a large back catalogue (so sorry for adding to your growing TBR). Hopefully I can read some more of her work soon. You can check out Adam’s other work by clicking on his website here. Fun fact I learned through finding his website is that he used to be a stuntman and actor! He’s also narrated over 100 books, along with like a stupid amount of other things like video games, commercials, tv shows, movies, and on and on. Talk about impressive!