Review: Sweet characters, but the writing didn't do it for me
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 08 29, 2012
Warning: This review might contain what some people consider SPOILERS.Rating: 5/10PROS:- Sean is a wonderful guy--selfless and patient, kind and passionate and sweet. He's the sort of guy you want to be friends with, or you want your cousin to date, or you want to be your next door neighbor. And Sam is a more masculine version of him--the perfect macho man who's also tender and physically demonstrative.- The story is very sweet, with regard to both the romance and Sean's relationship with Bobby. The romantic relationship is gentle with lots of kissing and slow lovemaking, and the tales of Bobby's life before living with Sean are heartbreaking, which makes the love he gets from Sean that much sweeter in comparison.- This is an easy read (which might be a con for some people): there is SOME conflict, but it's cursory and not deeply disturbing. Overall, the story reads a bit like a fairytale: immediate connection when the characters meet, a few obligatory run-ins with the bad guy, quick handling of the negative situations, and then a happy ending.CONS:- Grey's writing style just doesn't do it for me. It has choppy sentences and passages that are rushed, and it's full of telling as opposed to showing. For example, there's a point when Bobby appears "all dressed, looking very handsome in his suit." But there's no actual description of what he looks like; we readers have to simply take the author's word for it that he looks handsome.- We never get a very deep look at the characters' thoughts. One of them will reveal something pretty momentous, for instance, and instead of seeing the other guy's internal processing of the information, we get a sentence or two that describes how he feels on the surface, and then the story moves on.- It really bugs me when the two main characters in a story have names that look and/or sound similar. The guys here are Sam and Sean--both of which are short, contain a single syllable, and start with S. It's practically impossible to read the story quickly because you can't just glance at the first letter of the name in order to determine which character is being referred to, and even the author gets the guys confused sometimes: "Sam angled his face and felt Sam's lips touch his."Overall comments: I've read several Andrew Grey stories, and I like his characters. His stories are romantic, the guys are sweet, and the stories generally have a feel-good atmosphere to them, with practically no angst. I just don't like his writing style very much.