Category: 1 star

Review: Falling for His Best Friend by Casper Graham

Awkward writing and character motivations that don’t make sense made me DNF at 17%

1 out of 5 stars

E-book. 149 pages. Published June 8th 2019 by JMS Books LLC

Blurb:

Keenan Underwood finally reunites with Pablo Cotilla, his first ever best friend from his younger years. They begin hanging out again, spending plenty of time together. He enjoys every moment with Pablo, but doesn’t expect to fall in love with his best friend, who doesn’t reciprocate his feelings. 

Pablo has a hard time controlling himself around Keenan. Keenan is gorgeous, and the man has grown up into a hunk. Pablo doesn’t think he has a chance with Keenan because his best friend doesn’t have any romantic feelings toward him. It would be better for Pablo to conceal his real feelings rather than risk the possibility of being rejected by Keenan and also losing his best friend. But that’s easier said than done. 

Can they figure out their feelings? Or are they destined to only be best friends forever? 

Likes:

  • The plot and setup are classic.

Dislikes:

  • The writing was clunky. Awkward phrases, few contractions, too many exclamation points, and lots of people not laughing normally.
  • The characters weren’t engaging.
  • Their decisions not to try for a relationship don’t make sense.

DNF 17%

This book made me cringe. It reminded me of other books I’ve read on Kindle Unlimited where the author clearly never had someone edit the content. This book didn’t have spelling mistakes or incorrect words, but it is in dire need of someone to come along and iron out the plot and smooth out the clunky writing.

When I started reading, I assumed that this was the Graham’s first book. The writing has that ‘enthusiastic but unpolished’ feel to it. I pushed myself to continue reading, both because I assumed that Graham was a first time author and because the publisher, JMS, is a small queer press and it feels good to support them. When I eventually did look Graham up, I found that he has 30 unique works registered on Goodreads. And in that instant, all my acceptance of the book’s flaws disappeared.

If the clunky writing was only occasional, I could have kept reading. But there were so many awkward phrases that I couldn’t ignore them. Here are some of the ones I highlighted:

Keenan glared at the triumphant grin on David’s face before expelling his breath through his mouth.

“Judging by the tight clothing on the man’s body, his lean body is to die for.”

He also remembered how he almost drooled mouthfuls of spit at the sight of Pablo’s naked, muscled chest behind the counter.

Then there’s all the chuckling, chortling, and guffawing people do. Ugh.

The biggest issue, and the one that ultimately made me call it quits, was the reasoning behind both men independently deciding not to start a relationship. It doesn’t make sense. They both like guys, they both know about the sexuality and dating history of each other. They both think the other is hot and want to get together. And yet there is no flirting. No hinting. No testing the waters to see if the other would be interested in a relationship.

Because neither makes the first move, they both assume the other isn’t interested and so they pretend not to be interested. All because they “didn’t want to make things awkward between them and lose his best friend all over again.”

That in and of itself doesn’t make sense. These guys were best friends, but lost touch. Just because they suddenly meet up as adults doesn’t make them automatic best friends anymore. I honestly don’t get what’s going through their heads. The process of seeing them become friends – and more – should be the whole focus of the story. Instead, they both try to go straight to ‘we’re best friends again’ despite not knowing the other person as an adult. It just doesn’t work.

I’ve never read anything by Casper Graham before, and this book was not a good introduction. I’m tempted to read one of his short stories to see if I like it or not. I’ll also be interested to see what other people have to say about the book since there are no reviews for it on Amazon or Goodreads yet. I don’t keep track of how quickly people review things, but this book had been out for almost a month.

Review: Daddy Issues by Seth King

I wanted to like this book, but couldn’t.

1 out of 5 stars

Ebook. 222 pages. Published April 10th 2018

Blurb:

Their bond is forbidden. Their relationship could upend lives. But their love? It’s a force of nature… 

Ten years ago, a desperate and confused Robert Glazer briefly married a woman before confronting his sexuality and starting his life as an out gay man. They divorced and lost contact – until now. 

Today, a sudden family death throws Robert and his ex-wife back together for the first time. That’s where Robert meets her son Eliot, who was raised with his own father and is now a gorgeous – and openly gay – adult. And to Robert and Eliot’s surprise, sparks fly. 

Passion ignites, then threatens to explode. Soon Eliot knows three things. One: Robert is not his father figure, and never was – in fact, he barely remembers him. Two: news of their union would still rock his whole world. And three: he craves Robert more than anything he has ever wanted. And as suspicions arise, their attraction only grows…

Likes:

  • The blurb sucked me in.
  • The prologue made me interested.
  • The cover is hot.

Dislikes:

  • Everything else.

DNF 5%

I was excited when this book showed up in my BookBub email because I was looking for another book to read. What a disappointment.

Maybe I’m getting more picky the older I get (I’ll turn 30 next year) but I had a very strong negative reaction to this book. Which is a shame because the premise was promising. Even the prologue made me eager to read more despite being written in first person present tense, which I generally don’t like.

But when I got to Part 1 of the actual story, everything fell apart in a massive way.

The second sentence is “He’s in town for the funeral” which sets a tone in my mind that this is a somber situation. And that is not born out by what follows next, and I’m not just talking about the insta-lust between Eliot and Robert.

We’re immediately dropped into Eliot’s rambling internal monologue stream-of-consciousness info dump. No real setup of the scene or the location. Just brief mentions of a buffet line and a banquet room and now I have no idea where these characters are. All I know is they’re undressing each other with their eyes.

It’s Eliot’s inner rambling that killed it for me. All the rest of it I could have dealt with. It seriously felt like I was being beaten over the head by the info. I only needed to be told once that Robert was Eliot’s stepfather for a short time, they never lived together, and Eliot never saw Robert as a father figure. Instead, the info was repeated several times.

It got to the point where I just wanted Eliot to shut up. But when I went to skip ahead, I discovered there were no chapter marks in the book. That alone would have taken it down half a star for poor book design.

I skipped ahead to Robert’s point of view and find… more of the exactly the same kind of internal rambling without anything happening to move the plot along. Ugh. What was worse, there was this constant back and forth in the internal monologue. I’ll paraphrase.

This is wrong.

Or is it?

Yeah, definitely wrong.

But he’s so hot, and I want him. How wrong can it be?

Very wrong. Think pure thoughts.

What made me quit for good was Eliot bringing his cheating boyfriend, who has a temper and who Eliot knows he shouldn’t have taken back, with him to his grandmother’s weeklong celebration of life getaway. Eliot admits he’s spineless for tanking his ex back but it’s not his fault, see. He’s southern and has good manners and doesn’t want to rock the boat.

Nope.

On the one hand, I feel really bad because I only got 28 pages into this book. On the other hand, I knew I wouldn’t be able to enjoy any part of this if the beginning got on my nerves this much. Oh well.