Between his religious family, a deeply unpleasant ultimatum from his boss, and his own unrequited love for his sort-of ex, Enzo, it seems as though Adam’s life is falling apart. At least he has two people to keep him sane: his new boyfriend (he does love Linus, doesn’t he?), and his best friend, Angela.
But all day long, old memories and new heartaches come crashing together, throwing Adam’s life into chaos. The bindings of his world are coming untied one by one; yet in spite of everything he has to let go, he may also find freedom in the release. (Pub Date: Sep 19, 2017)
This was a different experience...
With a dual narration, the story follows the story of Adam, who is gay but also the son of a religious family and thus needs to deal with his family orthodox view of whom he is as well as impositions of whom they want him to be. We also follow Katie, a girl from the same small town who has been killed by her boyfriend and walks around town in a body that isn't hers but starts mixing together to a point neither knows how to release whatever force that has bound them together.
The two stories were good. Katie's narration as she roams and tries to remember who she is was something beautiful. In the beginning it could be a little messy but the words were so well chosen I still found it a delight. As for Adam's part, it was a much more worldly story, and yet, he faced a similar dilemma of how to let go of what had once defined him and become who he truly is now.
While the two share such a theme, this book didn't gain anything from Katie's story. I have still to come up with an explanation for it to be there, aside from the fact that they all take place in the same town at the same day. Adam barely knew Katie and they only meet very briefly for a forced reason, in my opinion. The two of them could have had the same adventure without one another.
Yes, it was Katie that brought the magical, the lyrical that made this book more unique. But it was also her part that made me feel disappointed. One whole book to find out what I already feared—they were just two novellas combined into a book. Katie's world could have been much more developed, because the Queen, the faun and she herself we such good characters they deserved making more sense and having a less forced solution to their ultimate issue. And Adam's was already so good, it didn't need the distractions, which sometimes got too close to being silly.
I liked this book, I recommend for those who are interested in LGBT issues, because they received great treatment here. But the idea for two stories overflowed with "they were too short for each of them to be" and lacked the "complementing each other" part. This was one frustrating disappointment.
Honest review based on an ARC provided by Edelweiss. Many thanks to the publisher for this opportunity.
Rating: 3 out of 5.
No comments:
Post a Comment