Review: Disappointed
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 11 28, 2013
I am the world's top Andrew Grey fan. I've read virtually everything he's published except for the short stories and novellas. I hate short stories and novellas. I like to get involved with a character, watch them grow, suffer, exult,  fail and triumph. I like depth, I like complexity, I love to -live- with a character.Short fiction just doesn't have enough runway to do that.So you're left with what Mr. Grey gives you in this book - formulas and triteness. Hunky big "straight" rich football star, shy retiring smaller, but smart and kind, nerd. It turns out that the big hunky football star is not all that straight, but coming out would mean losing his "fame", his family's respect, his entire reason for being (football?). The hunk gets outed, they overcome it, together, and you have your happily-ever-after.Where have I read this story before? And more important, how many times? Too many to remember. I am so disappointed that such a creative, talented and inventive writer as Andrew Grey succumbed to the pure ordinariness of this book. I, honestly, never expected that to happen.The only saving grace is that he did, at least, give it a more modern slant - only one of the players on his team lost it when he found out, the others were all supportive. After all, the times are changing. Thank God.But still, the sheer brevity of this format only allowed for the cartoon outlines of characters, not for fully-fleshed engaging ones. Most other reviewers gave this book four or five stars, so perhaps I missed something? Or perhaps they just haven't read as many quarterback-coming-out stories as I have.