Review: Disappointing and poorly written
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 03 2, 2014
2 out of 5 stars***This book was provided free by the author in exchange for an honest review, through the Goodreads "Don't Buy My Love" program***I am in a very small minority when I rate this book only 2 stars. I was hopeful for so much more, and was expecting the hurt/comfort trope I enjoy so much to be a large part of the story because of the severe abuse that Trey (and to a lesser extent, Justin) experienced as children. Unfortunately, the technical failures of the book overshadowed the story for me, and I actually found it a chore to read.Positives: there is hurt/comfort which is moving and hopeful. Although there is no HEA, the book does end with a tentative HFN as well as some character healing. Trey is committed to leaving the sex trade, and Justin is coming to grips with his own demons at the end of the book.Negatives: unfortunately, for me there were many. Firstly, the book is poorly written. There are frequent grammar mistakes (to vs too, your vs you're, missing apostrophes and commas, etc). Early on, I switched into English teacher and essay corrector mode, and I couldn't turn it back off, so all the mistakes just became magnified in my eyes, and took me right out of the story. I had the very definite feeling that someone went crazy with a thesaurus and picked out obscure words to drop in randomly. Or made up words that seem like they should be real, but aren't, like "abnegator". Blatant disregard became "latent disregard" which is something entirely different. I actually started highlighting them in my Kindle I was getting so irritated with them.Secondly, the medical and psychiatric aspects of the book were very poorly researched. I'm a medical professional, so I know that I am going to be more critical than the average reader, but it bothered me nonetheless. There is no such thing as a 5 day "psychological coma". Anyone who scrapes the skin off their body repeatedly and sprays bleach on it will have some really horrific scars that will not be fixable via plastic surgery. When someone has a serious suicide attempt they are going to be committed to a psychiatric hospital for a few days at least. When you stab yourself with a 3 inch wide butcher knife the likelihood of missing all vital organs is slim to none, and the bladder is at the very bottom of the abdomen with the diaphragm at the top, so worrying about both in the same stab wound doesn't make any sense. AAAAUGH!And finally, I wasn't very happy with the characterization. Trey is messed up. He has a right to be. It is why I am reading this story, to see him try to heal. And yet, he is fairly successful in college, on scholarship, making good grades, never missing a class, and supporting himself in relative comfort on his prostitution wages for several years until the events of this story. Until his coma. And then he meets Justin, admires his 10 inch dick, they have sex, and he wakes up with a reason to live. Justin also falls in insta-love with Trey. And supposedly Justin has significant psychiatric issues of his own, but he just comes across as whiny and clingy instead of mentally ill, except when he is being supportive of Trey - those were the best parts of the story, but at those moments he was not the broken man he is elsewhere suggested to be. There was little consistency with the characters and their actions, and none of it seemed believable. The parents and grandparents were just bizarre - I mean, whose grandmother walks in on her grandson having sex on the kitchen table and "smile[s] warmly and sa[ys] "Hello dear, this must be your new boyfriend?" Really?????Overall, a very disappointing read. I don't think I will read further in this series