Review: Almost A Good Book
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 12 23, 2013
I almost didn't write this review. The author's intention was obviously good and he wrote a book full of heart. But he didn't write it all that well. It reads like a first effort, not a polished work of any real substance.As others have pointed out, the grammatical errors and typos are awfully distracting. Some words don't even exist, like "iI", some sentences are missing verbs or objects. Other sentence just disappear mid-sentence, leaving the reader scratching his or her head, wondering "what was that about?",  all of which makes it hard to get into the rhythm of the book.Plus, there are more than a few obsessions that mark Mr. Ortiz's approach to his characters. Paramount among these are sweat. His men are always sweating until they stink. One of the main characters, in bed recovering from a beating, has gone so long without a shower that he reeks so bad his lover won't touch him. Ugh!The other obsession is with hair. One character shaves all his private parts, but admits that from the waist down, he's a wooly blond Wookie. He's the one who doesn't reek, endlessly, of sweat. I spent several moments trying to visualize the blond man with the fuzzy matted bottom half and shaved genitals. Couldn't do it.The family characters were interesting and intriguing, but some threads just disappeared without explanation. Their homophobic uncle Ted tries to throw them out of his mother's house calling them every vile epithet you can imagine - so bad, that they leave their beloved aunt Ruby's birthday party. And we never hear another word about him, or Ruby, or anyone else on that side of the family.Other supporting characters are cartoons. Two of Alex's friends from Atlanta come to lure him away to party in the "big city", at which point Robert almost rapes him, while calling him names and insisting that he's Atlanta royalty, and that Alex is pond scum - all the while being egged on my his faithful companion, a skeleton of a girl with neither breasts nor butt that the author describes as getting her way "the way pretty girls always do" - and that's after comparing her to Olive Oyl. Does not compute.Like many new authors, Mr. Ortiz is not comfortable expressing his characters' feelings in acts, deeds and description and often falls back on all-cap exclamations, such as "WOW, BUT I JUST LOVE D**K!". It's embarrassing.The awkwardness continues right through the last pages. The epilogue has nothing to do with the story, but starts another one  about one of the secondary characters in an obvious and ham-fisted attempt at a cliffhanger to get you excited about what I assume is the next book in the series.So, let's leave it at "good try". Now get an editor.