Review: 3.5 Stars At Most
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 03 5, 2013
I had high hopes for this novel based on the many positive reviews as well as the preview offered by Amazon, but unfortunately this story fell flat for me.  The two main characters, Logan and Caleb, were believable and their relations progressed in a very realistic way.  However, the emphasis on character-driven prose eventually made the story feel as though it was dragging along and a few other annoyances resulted in me ranking this no higher than 3 stars.First off, I love characterization.  It's very important to me for the author to create characters that are relatable, sincere, and human.  Ruskin has achieved this in that I feel Logan and Caleb could exist somewhere in real life.  They weren't perfect though: the character's constant self-doubts about their worth for each other became tiresome and Logan's random usage of "blue-collar grammar" (as another reviewer put it) was jarring and didn't fit with the image of him I developed while readin earlier characterization; I had to adjust to the sudden double negatives and was momentarily thrown out of the story.  It would have been better if his grammar and dialogue had been more consistent.  The other characters felt largely like stock characters: the over-concerned, parental-figure uncle; the "tough love" knows-best sponser; the supportive-no-matter-what best friend; and the overzealous, no remorse, clearly antagonistic supervisor.  The parole officer was borderline silly but still kind of predictable: a man with a tough job dealing with ex-cons in an office full of M&Ms; merchandise.  I felt like I couldn't take these characters seriously because either their actions were too extreme to be believable or they played a too coincidentally perfect role in the story that their presence and motives felt obviously convenient.  And the therapist's dialogue sounded way too straight-out-of-a-textbook and the uncle's motives/behavior was a bit hard to understand.  On a final note, the overabundance of gay characters, as well as the fact that they were all related to one another in some way, was a bit of a stretch for me and seemed inauthentic.That being said, there is very little plot in this novel aside from watching Caleb and Logan's relationship grow.  There are backstories that aid in this as well as a tiny story that takes place in contemporary time but recieves little attention due to this being character-driven.  The story would have been far more engaging had Ruskin developed a stronger plot that focused on something other than the dynamic traits of the characters or their relationship.  While some may argue that the plot was their growing relationship, I felt that the events presented in the narrative were more "slice of life" and started to make the story's progression seem very slow.Finally, on a temperature scale, the sex scenes were warm, almost cool.  I liked that there was not an overabundance of them (only two or three), but the ones that were written were not interesting or electrifying.When One Door Opens consists of mostly solid writing and fantastic, if not overemphasized, characterization.  The story line was interesting but the prose began to drag towards the end of the novel.  The lenghth (210 pages) was good for the price of the book and I think the idea of troubled characters coming together will appeal to many readers.  However, I wanted more of an action-driven rather than character-driven plot and could do with fewer stock characters.  This isn't the best m/m romance I've read but it's far from being the worse.  This would not be the first book I'd reccommend but if asked whether you should read it I would say yes.  This appears to be the author's first work (at least offered on Amazon) and I'm interested to see what other novels she releases; I believe she has great potential.