Review: Wonderful and Frustrating
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 03 6, 2014
Pull Me Under is a wonderful novel about an British football (US:  soccer) player who, upon being outed, develops a relationship with an out-and-out Henry on a "pretend to be boyfriend" basis.  It's a wonderful exploration of a developing relationship and emerging love that, at 1/3 of the way through the novel, I expected to rate it with 5 stars.  Well, what happened?  It began dragging on and on and on with Ben (the soccer player) unable to communicate his honest feelings to Henry and with Ben's insecurities over his own value continuing and continuing.  At the 82% point, Ben still could not honestly communicate with Henry.  And I gave up on further reading (pushed it back to the cloud).  I really feel that if the novel was shorter I would have finished it -- probably to a "happy" ending.  But, like other reviewers with 3 stars, I grew too impatient with Ben's inability to wrestle with his demons.  What should have been a 5 star novel turns out for me to be a 2.5 star novel.  If you have more patience with Ben's travails than I did then this is for you.