Review: Recommended book - it touched my soul
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 10 29, 2013
No Flag is much too complex to try to review it by retelling the story. There are many plots and sub-plots intermingled in the most exquisitely written book I’ve read in a while. The characters are remarkable and developed to the point I can’t stop thinking of them as real people. There was one minor character who I thought was so over the top malevolent I had trouble connecting with her, even as a villain, but other than that this book is populated with startlingly real characters, good and evil.I can’t imagine the amount of research Ms Borino did to complete this book. She covers the foster care system, gay relationships, military hierarchy, politics, the war in Afghanistan, OCD, the domestic discipline lifestyle, business development, personal and business financial planning, technology, disabilities, including recovery and treatment, pain management, terroristic threats and responses, heroic patriotism, PTSD, date rape pharmaceuticals, and I’m probably forgetting a whole lot more. Did I say this was a complex story? Try weaving all of that and a romantic love story plus erotic elements together to create a coherent, beautiful book. I don’t know how she does it but Liz Borino accomplished just that.I have cried during emotional stories many times, and did again in this one. However, I’ve not felt the anger that welled up from this story. More than once something happened that was so unfair, so excruciatingly thoughtless I was beyond angry, knowing such things do happen outside of fiction and do hurt real human beings and the people who love them.And the title, No Flag? It comes from Will telling Mike not to do anything heroic that would result in the presentation of a coffin flag to Will at Mike’s funeral. I have one of those flags and received it from an Air Force officer on bended knee, with the words, “From the President of the United States and a grateful nation.” The wording at presentation has changed since then but the demonstration of shared grief is the same. So I get the reference and the plea from one lover to another. It is just about the most perfect title I can imagine for this book.All that love, sadness, anger, and emotion builds up to a wonderfully satisfying HEA. It wouldn’t be a Liz Borino romance without that. I adored this book.This review originally appeared at Mrs Condit & Friends Read Books