Review: A Hopeful Ending to a Chaotic Tale
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 02 5, 2014
Sliding Past Vertical is a story of loves lost, friendships gained and love rediscovered in a well written chronicle of Sarah Cohen's continuous string of bad choices and unlucky breaks.The story starts with Sarah living in Boston and dealing with her current boyfriend, Jay's, numerous episodes of not being punctual or dependable, along with his need for a stay in rehab to kick his many addictions. If that were not enough, Jay has some "friends" in the illegal drug business who ransack Sarah's apartment looking for a hidden stash that Jay asked Sarah to keep safe for him while in rehab. In the middle of all of this, the store where Sarah works, burns down in a suspicious fire. When it all becomes too much for Sarah to deal with, she calls Emerson - her closest friend and past lover from college in Syracuse.Emerson has always been there to clean up the messes that Sarah had made in her chaotic, post-collegiate life. Unbeknownst to Sarah, Emerson still carries a torch for her and he would love nothing more than to be closer to her. Sarah takes Emerson up on his offer to move back to Syracuse with him and his roommate, Rashid.This is where the story takes on a new series of dramatic twists and turns, leaving the reader wanting to know what happens next and who Sarah will ruin in the remainder of this book.Although the ending was not as happy as I would have liked, it left a feeling of hopefulness that Sarah and Emerson would eventually get back together one day. But it also left doubt that even if they did finally work it all out, their road to "happily ever after" would still have a lot of bumps along the way.Review written by S.A. Molteni, author of several award-winning short stories, including "Her Name was Half Calf" and "Fade to Gray".