Review: Wish I Loved It
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 10 31, 2013
I can't even pin down why I was left with such a sense of antipathy to this book.It could be because almost nothing happens, except a few manufactured mini-crises just to keep the pages turning. Other than that, it's a story of boy-meets-boy, boy-falls-in-love-with-boy, boy and boy live happily ever after.One of the boys is a gay porn star who is supposed to be "gay-for-pay". However, it doesn't take him more than a day or two, after meeting the British boy, to decide that he's actually gay - even though he's been having sex with men day-in-and-day-out for five years. Is he so lacking in self-awareness  that he doesn't even consider the fact that he might actually be gay? On the other hand, he doesn't get particularly upset at the sudden insight. I mean, the coming out appears to be no big deal. Neither is the falling in love, which happens, pretty much, over a few days and over the phone.One of the things that bothered me is that I'm pretty confident he was cast as a gay porn star just to have an excuse to throw in a bunch of gratuitous sex scenes with the other characters at the studio.Both boys go back to England for one of the most boring few weeks I can imagine. Yawn. While there, the Brit's older ex-boyfriend shows up and the big crisis of the book is whether the Brit will take up again with his lover, or all of them together as a threesome? Yawn, again.But I think what got me off to a bad start with this book was the basic quality of the writing (or perhaps editing?). The author is British and she writes almost all of the book from the point of view of the American kid. It is a real talent to nail a voice that's in a language other than your own and sadly, this book doesn't quite manage it. Both the dialog and internal dialog, at times, take on the character of a "clipped" British accent, which makes the San Diego porn-star MC less than convincing:"I am ready to leave for the following day""But I'm finding it hard to do so" (Americans would say "I'm finding it hard to do")."He wishes for me to treat his house as my home"  and,"...upper most" (anyone ever heard of "uppermost"?).I'll stop before I get an irredeemable reputation as a member-in-good-standing of the grammar and spelling police - but honestly, it's not about that. It's about the fact that, not for one moment, was I able to believe I was hearing a 26-year-old native Californian speaking, which made it hard for me to care about him. Which is whence, I believe, my ennui with this book probably springs.You might like it better. For me, I seriously weighed only giving this book two stars, but relented, at the last minute, and gave it three stars to acknowledge "a good try".The other reviews were stellar, so perhaps I missed something charming about this book - I don't remember any moments of either charm or humor. Regardless, before purchasing, read the sample and see if you get the same negative first impression I did. If not, then, by all means, give it a go.