Review: Knitter in His Natural Habitat
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 03 7, 2013
I adore Amy Lane's stories. I always feel a connection with her characters and what they go through to the point that I end up crying over them nonstop. Unfortunately, I struggled with this one.It was hard for me to connect with Stanley because I felt like his character was forced.... or maybe I should say the story felt forced? Regardless, he wasn't a genuine character to me, if that makes any sense, so it was hard for me to even like him. His personality is shifty - one moment sweet and nice, the next extremely bitchy and catty - I wasn't feeling that at all. Then again, I wasn't too fond of Stanley before this book either and it didn't make me like him more when Stanley felt the need to blab to pretty much everyone that Johnny was in WITSEC and then give his whole story over again. He was in the program for a reason... and that was to keep his identity and his past life hidden... Stanley apparently didn't understand the concept of that, though. Johnny is an enigma, even though you know his situation. For some reason, I couldn't connect with him either, which is weird because I love mobsters - ex or otherwise.Mostly, I struggled with this story. I've enjoyed this series so far but this one I just couldn't get into. I didn't feel like there was a connection between Stanley and Johnny at all. Even though they went on dates and talked about their lives, there was no spark, IMO, because there was always the underlining feeling that Johnny was only with Stanley because of his "sweet little bubble-butt". The situation regarding Johnny didn't quite make sense to me. How did Johnny's past catch up with him? I didn't understand. Usually, in series, I'm not all that fond of Amy Lane's desire to revisit past couples but in this one I found it a blessing because I enjoyed seeing Aiden and Jeremy again... although I was left scratching my head in how the whole conflict was taken care of and why Jeremy seemed almost eager to get the crap beaten out of him without calling for help or anything.All in all, not my favorite Lane book. It was very hard to get through, and I think that might have been because there was a lot of telling from Stanley instead of showing, which made it difficult for me. Also, why did everyone feel the need to get Stanley to dump Johnny? Yeah, he was in the mob but I don't remember everyone trying to get Aiden to dump Jeremy cuz he's an ex-con (although I could be wrong) so why did everyone gang up on Stanley? Kudos to Stanley to sticking with him, though.