Review: Loved the main character, but not the conflicts
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 04 12, 2013
3-3.5 stars - Parts of this book I really enjoyed, and parts of it I found really frustrating. I'm just going to list them.What I liked:Jude: Merrow excels at creating realized narrative voices, and Jude's is no exception. Like Al in Muscling Through, or Tom in Pressure Head, Jude's voice, both internally and very-externally, is alive and real and his presence is very easy to picture as he saunters down the street. Although I found his mile-a-minute thoughts quite tiring, I did like his character, and props to Merrow for creating such a consistently real and upbeat voice for him. (He could star in his own tv show, and I'd watch it.)Side Characters: Like in her other works, Merrow creates real, multi-dimensional side characters, ones so rich that they could walk off and star in their own book. In this one, I particularly like Jude's friend Keisha, who was so beyond the gay-guy's-best-girl-friend trope. She's funny, strong, and struggling with her own conflicts outside of Jude's sparkly sphere of influence. And because Jude's POV is a bit self-absorbed, there are lots of fun hints for the reader to find in other character's actions, so you get a better reading of what's really going on (even if Jude himself hasn't noticed yet.)Focus on story: Like Hard Tail and Pressure Head, the focus is on the story more so than the sexy times. There's a lot of enforced-UST. (David is very chivalrous, to Jude's chagrin). There's a scene and a half of sexy times in the later parts, but personally, I didn't really miss the lack of explicit intimacy.The setting and overall British-ness: Sometimes I don't get the slang, but I also really enjoy Merrow's *very British* writing and how it colors her character's voices. It's a real pleasure, and it keeps my mind busy as sometimes I have to back-up and interpret what Jude just said. (Ohhhh, "wacky backy," that's pot...) :-)What was harder for me:Jude's voice is wonderfully realized, but exhausting at times, especially during the first 30%. Maybe I got used to it, but I had to take breaks, step away, read something else. He is a bright bulldozer, which is both great, and reallllly tiring.Too much dialogue: I LOVE DIALOGUE. LOVE IT. It's one of my favorite parts of stories. But Slam! is very dialogue-heavy, and I feel some of it is not needed and could have been edited down to make the pacing tighter. At times, I felt like I was in a scene where a writer just loved the voices so much, that it just kept going and going for the sake of writing the voices and lost some of the point of the scene or the driving force for the story.Chemistry: Jude and David's chemistry was okay, but not my fave of Merrow's relationships. Maybe it was lighter in tone because it was a lighter story, but I wished for a little more depth here. (Maybe that low chemistry was one of the reasons why I didn't really miss the lack of sexy times.)Lame conflicts: Part of this might be my issue with straight-up contemporary romances in general, but I really dislike it when the story conflicts rest on misunderstandings, lies, and miscommunications. If a character just ran one step faster and said something, everything could be fixed. Or pushing a falsehood through most of the story and having that falsehood be the dynamite that blows things up (or in this case, the sparkler.)I found the characters and their voices much stronger than the conflicts that were used in the story. I wish something more worthwhile had been used. And I wish the solution had been more satisfying.And I wish some more page-time had been spent on Jude's own personal growth, outside of his career thoughts (which came in kind of tacked on at the end.) And I wish Jude had never thought about toning himself down (don't worry, he doesn't), or think that he needed to reach out and track Dave down. (That, he does.)That being said, know that it has a sweet HFN ending. Most things aren't fixed, but I'd say it's on par with the HFN ending of Hard Tail--feel good, happy, and hopeful.And I would put this on par with Hard Tail, another Merrow work that had parts that I loved and parts that I found problematic. But this also might be just me. I'm finding that I have a low tolerance for contemporary romances when there isn't something like a mystery or an adventure or ghosts or shifters or spaceships involved. (Just something to shake up the plot so it's not just based on that one thing the MC didn't share.)Your mileage may vary though, and I know some who loved this story to pieces. So, if you're looking for a funny, lighter contemporary romance, are okay with a very British narrator, and are okay with a little bit more UST, then this might hit all your buttons. (And Jude's poetry is very fun.)