Review: A Near Miss
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 01 21, 2014
I would have liked to give this book more stars, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it.First, there are situations in this book that simply stretch credulity to the breaking point. And one is at the very core of the entire book: Gage, one of the two MCs, is only eighteen years old, yet he's married with a precocious four-year-old and a 1 1/2 year old baby. Apparently, his older next-door neighbor seduced him at his 14th birthday party. He is so overwhelmed with feelings of responsibility that he gives up his life and future at the age of 16 and marries the woman who bore his child. Fortunately for his kids, she doesn't give a damn about any of them.Trent isn't much more believable. He has an M.A. from UNC in health administration, but despite having spent years in bars and on the Internet, his whole understanding of his own sexuality comes from pornos he watched on the Web when he first came out in his teens. Somehow, he is too ignorant or stupid to even consider the possibility that gay people can, and do, have loving relationships and their own families. Doesn't this guy ever read a newspaper or watch the news on TV? I mean, the Internet is still going right? And gay rights have been headline news for what, a decade or three? And what, pray tell, did he possibly think the whole gay marriage thing was all about? Tax breaks?I'm sorry, but I'm just having a big problem processing an 18-year-old gay married father of two children who owns and operates his own farm and a gay guy with a master's degree who doesn't realize that gays can actually love each other.Once you get past that premise, both the MCs and the children sharpen into focus and the author delivers an engaging and moving portrait of them as they develop a relationship and a new family.That would be OK (if a bit over-sentimentalized), except for the shameful editing. You know the editing is really, really bad when whole sections start to border on the illiterate, and you have to stop reading while you figure out what the hell the author -meant- to write, as opposed to what she actually wrote.I hadn't realized, until recently, how many authors border on the illiterate, and how critical it is to have a trustworthy and thorough editor, so that your prose doesn't come out like the following:"Trent had often came back to the dorm" (had often [come] back?)"It hadn't made real dent in his heart." ([a] real dent? Prepositions and verbs were often missing)."But if lost chance at a real relationship..." (if [he] lost [his] chance)"On top of the awkward of the last time we were together" ( [awkwardness] of the last time...)And my favorite, the one I never did figure out:"He there only seemed to be one place".C'mon, authors, give your readers a break! Or at least give the the minimal respect due to someone who pays money for your work by delivering a polished, completed product. If I had honestly deducted for the execrable editing, this would have been a two-star review, instead of three.