Review: Reminds me of the best elements of how writing 'used' to be.
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 02 18, 2014
I was buying cheap romance novels, didn't see the picture on this well, splurged for a short story which I almost never do, and ended up reading the first book with two males romantically entangled I think I ever have. Bit of a departure from my historical (and hysterical) heroines, I admit.The writing reminds me of a lot of the science fiction I grew up reading. It's hard to place why, but if feels like that. Like the late 60s early 70s paperback novels that only decades later were realized to be a degree of genius (and fueled the movies of the next two decades in some cases).The story's set in a truly dismal and dreary era. The author manages to make this clear and set the tone with it, without making me want to leap from a ledge during and after, which is normally the effect such settings have on me in books (there's a reason I read mostly-formulaic happy-endings), so that's a nice touch. It's not easy to convey rapport with a depressive setting without actually being really depressing, I actually think this deserves some kind of award.I was surprised it had sex that was attractive and interesting enough to me (given I have zero affinity with M/M bonding, as an older hetero woman). I realized after a bit it's because it is truly romantic, in the original sense of the word. Actually it is vastly more sensual (as opposed to raw sexual) than half the romance novels I read, which are barely more than bad pxrn. This writer is just a better writer apparently. I appreciate that, since I think it's a sort of stereotype for such things to be merely lewd, instead of sometimes lovely, which all genuine relationships, even new ones, can be.The story manages to be a little bit gritty, a little bit grey, a little bit warming-to-color and a little bit sweet. In the end it's one of those sort of slice-of-life stories, where it's not like there is a big official plot, bad guy, crescendo and ending, but more like you just got dropped into a piece of time in the lives of people, and then the window to their lives passed. It's nice.