Review: Excellent depiction of emotion, but I wish it weren’t so jumpy and sparse
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 10 29, 2013
Warning: This review might contain what some people consider SPOILERS.Rating: 7/10PROS:- Hunter’s mix of emotions as he navigates a lot of awkward, unfamiliar situations is well depicted.- The book has quite a few pithy statements scattered throughout that made me pause to appreciate them. Example: “Sometimes I wonder if I’m nothing more than the sum of who they both were. Even worse, I worry that I don’t add up nearly so well, that I’m just a shadowed reflection of them.”- I sometimes get frustrated by first person narration because it’s so limited: everything is filtered through one person’s perspective, every scene colored by the narrator’s feelings and prejudices. But I liked it here. We get a solid picture of how it feels to be the outsider, as well as how strongly Hunter feels for Max.- The author tackles a difficult subject matter (namely, navigating the minefield of a cross dressing gay man and his bisexual partner) in a way that felt honest and real to me. (Although I could have done without the scene in which the characters discuss this aspect of their lives with their premarital counselor; that was the one scene on that topic that felt forced to me.)CONS:- Present tense is a writing convention that rarely makes sense to me, and this is not one of those rare occasions. Sentences like this--“‘It’s going to be fine,’ I encourage”--are simply awkward to me.- The timeline is difficult to follow at times. Scenes in present tense are interwoven with flashbacks in a way that doesn’t always leave the reader with too many clues as to when each scene is taking place.- Because of the way the story is told--present tense mixed with flashbacks here and there--we don’t get a solid picture of the characters’ background. There are teasing comments here and there about important events from their past (example: Max accuses Hunter of stealing his virginity, and Hunter’s response is, “Stole it, my [rear]…That was a giveaway, thank you very much”), but we don’t actually get to see or hear any amount of detail about these formative times. I wanted details about how they met, their first date, the first time they made love, what made Hunter realize he was ready to take the plunge, etc. These things are merely hinted at, which frustrated me.Overall comments: The story lacks a conventional plot; it’s more of a meandering look at a brief time in two men’s lives. The positive is that this structure leaves room for a deep examination of the narrator’s feelings. The negative is that for some readers, the book will be unbearably slow. I liked the bare bones quite a bit: it is by turns tender and spiteful, calm and passionate. However, I wish the characters’ history had been more purposefully filled out.