Review: Lackluster M/M romance
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 08 3, 2012
A Hearts on Fire ReviewEtienne's "Magic Fingers" is fifth book in his Avondale series about two men falling in love while each man battles their personal obstacles. This is a first time read from this author for me. According to the book's description, both men are former soldiers of the U.S. Army. David Majors is battle scarred and insecure of a very significant injury he received (SPOILER ALERT: He had genital damage via grenade during his tour and had a penectomy.) David is insecure about his body and looks for sex in gay bars in Jacksonville, FL. There he meets Kevin Boxer, supposed to be a one-night stand hopeful but becomes the love his life.Sounds good right? Two former soldiers finding love and Kevin was billed as helping David exorcise his personal battles of his disfigurement. Also, Kevin has his own personal scars that David might needs to help him overcome as well. From what the book description and the above mentioned, you might expect angst ridden alphas males dealing through emotions and grappling their way into love. Maybe even some trials and tribulations on that quirky road leading to love? Well readers get to reach that pinnacle with both men...at page thirty. Kevin and David meet, have that one night stand that extends over a weekend, then days, into a vacation and then love.The story peaks at page 30, yet is a 200+ page novel. And were those pages very, very long.In "Magic Fingers", I enjoyed Etienne's including hot button topics of current American culture and gay culture. He touched upon injured war veterans, coming out to their families, bigotry, the difficulty same sex couples face with legalities such as leaving property for your partner when the other passes, adoption, becoming an accountant and even dealing with the T.S.A. at airports.The author's execution of these issues varied as was the pacing of the story and the tone, sometimes forthright, sometimes elusive, sometimes nonsensical, mostly flat. The characters did not really emote anything after page thirty. The comments were dry and at some points unnecessary. An example of this being pages of Accounting 101 - even one of the characters remarked that accounting information was boring. If the character let's the reader know it's also boring, there's a problem. Why include tedious information?The author repeats this including details upon details of extraneous information with weak executions leaving many chapters at odd points and uneven flows into chapters. At first I enjoyed the blunt delivery of the characters but then they just became one-dimensional, repetitive and...boring. And then the important issues such as Kevin's family history and the supposed scars that he have were never discussed. He never brought up issues with his family until much later after these men declare their love. The author gave pages on how to set up a living will or purchasing a home and setting up leases but didn't detail the more important information a reader would like to know.Also there's one scene that I though that was degrading in my opinion but apparently helped David from feeling like a "freak" by having other gay men place bets while watching his lover give him a prostate message during a party. David has body image issues and what his lover decided is seeing him come in front of an audience of virtual strangers (Maybe series readers might know of these couples but I didn't). And these place bets. Don't worry folks, the men won the bets.What might have made the story better? Maybe a nonobjective editor or beta reader or critique group that would help point of these concerns. The ending of the story was disjointed. The dialogue became weird (David pulled down his pants in front of his father & his father creepily asked him how he and his partner have sex) at times or just plain ridiculous (see previous example). Also there was no plot line or interesting events to drag this story for more than thirty pages. This was a short story stretched into a novel with nothing supporting the length to make "Magic Fingers" interesting.I gave the story an extra star, making it a total rating of two, because I do believe the author had great intentions with choosing such a flawed chracter as David Majors. I've never read of a hero with genital damage to his extent.Who would I recommend this story to? Current fans of Etienne's Avondale series as they would probably appreciate the references of past featured couples, lovers of drama-less romance stories and enthusiasts of gay accountants' love lives.