Review: Enjoyable story.
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 02 5, 2012
REVIEW WAS ORIGINALLY POSTED AT REVIEWS BY JESSEWAVE, I PURCHASED THE BOOK ON MY OWN.I liked this writer's Falling Off the Face of the Earth and when I saw the new story, I was really interested to see if I liked it as much as I liked the first one, and for 99 cents I did not hesitate much.Okay, my biggest gripe with this book is its title, which really, really does not reflect the great story behind it and I wish the writer would have come up with the better one. I also think that the story could use some general tightening up, but I really did not see obvious typos, grammar mistakes, etc.So I highly suggest you ignore the title (and the cover while I am at it) and start reading. You will meet a completely ordinary guy Matt, who definitely has some self-esteem issues and puts up with his jerk boyfriend because Matt tries to convince himself over and over that he is lucky to have Brian. I have to say that Matt's self-esteem issues did not make me less sympathetic towards him, but your mileage may wary.All of this changes when Matt finds himself in the extraordinary situation and, as the blurb tells us, gets saved from it by a team of Navy Seals. I have to say, that I think this writer really has a talent to make out-of-whack situations to be completely believable for the reader and while I was reading the story, I kept nodding my head. When I thought it over after I was done reading, of course I thought that the idea of Matt's further involvement in the situation he initially found himself in was not very realistic to put it mildly. However it still does not matter to me in the slightest, because the writer made me buy it. I am not sure how he did it, maybe because while he placed Matt in the not very probable situation, he concentrated on describing Matt's feelings about it and he made him feel what very ordinary human would have felt. Matt does not become a superhero, he does not want to make a decision, he is really scared to get involved further and he is scared even after he decides to get involved. By the way, I want to be clear, when I say improbable situation, I do not mean the initial kidnapping; certainly today we hear of kidnappings of the civilians around the world way too often than I would have wanted to -- never . What I find improbable is the idea that the military would want to involve an untrained civilian in their operation that way, but as I said, while I was reading I was able to suspend my disbelief and kudos to the writer for that. The emotions of the characters were very believable and the action scenes were a lot of fun to read.I loved how Matt changes throughout the story, while still being an ordinary guy and I thought SEAL guys were really enjoyable characters. And I really enjoyed the story of Matt becoming friends with the SEALS and sharing the bond of their brotherhood with them, and again, somehow the author wrote about it in a very convincing way for me. By the way, if you don't like reading stories about the US Army portrayed in a romantic way, you should stay away from the book. I really enjoyed it, but I always try to give the most warnings possible, even if I only suspect that there is a reason somebody may dislike the story. I have a friend who really dislikes the romantic stories about the military as she cannot think of the military that way, so just in case this is a turn off as well for you, keep it in mind.Yes, there is a lovely romance in the book for Matt and you should read to find out with whom he gets his well deserved happy ending. I really do not want to describe romance in great details since the blurb is so silent on that, but I thought it was very well done and mixed with action adventure story line. The guy with whom Matt ends up is a terrific character in its own right.While I think that the story could have been shortened somewhat (not much at all!), I did not feel it dragged a lot and overall highly recommend it.