Review: bittersweet ending
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 01 3, 2013
God, I hate to be the first one to lower the satisfaction rating because I absolutely love this author! Please don't let the three-star rating fool you - Ms. Yamila is the absolute best at what she does and that's tell a story that will pull you in right with the characters. She writes incredible love and sex scenes and overall all of her stories, be it manga or a novella, are genuine and never generic, where everything the character does leads to pointless sex for the sake of it. All of her characters are emotionally involved and they are usually overcoming some type of strife that makes the yaoi she writes sentimental and very satisfying to the end.However...What I notice about her is that she seems to do her best work when she doing her serials. I was sold on Ms. Yamila when I first read the Incubus Master series (I loved Scor! I thought he was so feral and sexy...) and she totally outdone herself with Maelstrom. The other ones that followed were good, too - but those two were epic!While her novellas are pretty good - they all have the same problem. They all end abruptly. Cold Beautiful was no different. And on top of, the ending - while not completely unexpected - it did kind of happen out of the blue.If you've ever read a review of mine before, you'll know that I give spoiler free reviews, but the way Ms. Yamila sets this story up - you really don't expect it end as abruptly as it does. It makes the strife that Yolkov goes through on the island with Zhirov almost irrelevant. I got that there was maybe a life lesson in it for Yolkov in the sense that he was learning who he truly was and what it took to find happiness in his life, but I was still disappointed at the cost.What it comes down to is that I'm just used to a major triumph at the end of Ms. Yamila's stories. I really don't feel there was one at the end of this one. Sure, the job was completed, but to what gain?Anyway, if you're used to more of Ms. Yamila's spicer work - you might be disappointed. The sexual content is a bit lukewarm in this one. And that's okay, because as I've said - she's a wonderful storyteller and even her best sex scenes are secondary to the content of the story itself. But I just thought I would mention that part for the perverts like me who look forward to the dirty talk she's so good at in her stories - all of that is really kept to a minimum in this one.In the end, I would have given this a four-star rating but I just really would have loved a more...uplifting ending. But, really, money spent on this author is never wasted. I've read everything she's put out and would never recommend against buying from Ms. Yamila because despite my point of view on this story you will find any read from her - including this one - entertaining, to say the least.