Month: November 2014

Anna M. reviews Never Too Late by Julie Blair

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Never Too Late is the first book from Bold Strokes Books author Julie Blair.

After they attend a Melissa Etheridge concert together, a one-night stand in Atlanta between Jamie Hammond and a woman named Carly leaves both women profoundly affected. However, Jamie wakes up the next morning to find her companion gone with only a note of thanks. She returns to California to join her father’s business and become a full-fledged chiropractor, a fate she somewhat unwillingly embraces.

Twenty years later, Jamie’s business is in financial trouble because of an employee’s embezzlement and its consequences. She needs a new office manager, and Carly (now Carla Grant, soon-to-be divorced mother of one) walks through her door. Carla and Jamie recognize each other immediately, but each pretend not to, since this is a romance novel. Jamie has a closeted partner, Sheryl, who turns out to be the principal who tried to prevent Carla’s lesbian daughter from holding hands with her girlfriend at school. Jamie decides not to tell Carla or Sheryl about the other’s existence.

Carla fell in love with Jamie all those years ago in Atlanta, but chose duty and responsibility over self-discovery–she was pregnant when they had their one-night stand, and returned to marry her boyfriend. Now, her husband has discovered he’s also gay, and they’re separating amicably. Carla has the opportunity to start life over again as an out and proud lesbian, and she’s suddenly been confronted by the woman who made her realize what love could be. Carla and Jamie must negotiate their work and personal relationship through the difficulties presented by Jamie’s money troubles, her villainous partner, and her workaholism. Is it too late for them to have a second chance?

Never Too Late felt unbalanced as a romance: the focus was so much on Jamie and her problems that it sacrificed some intimacy between her and Carla in favor of exploring her character growth. Which is fine, unless you were expecting a romance that gave equal weight to each main character; the obstacles in the book were almost all created by Jamie. The obstacle of Jamie’s preexisting relationship was handled through the vilification of Sheryl, who [spoiler alert]:

  • is closeted
  • is obsessed with her potential work promotion
  • shops all the time and spends Jamie’s money
  • is unsympathetic
  • wears perfume Jamie hates
  • is totally cheating on Jamie WITH A MAN (*gasp* how could she!)

Sheryl is almost cartoonishly terrible, but Jamie doggedly stays with her anyway, far past the point where any reader would want her to. Despite these flaws, I was rooting for Carla and Jamie to cut through the tangled mess of Jamie’s life and get together. There are the seeds of a solid romance here, they just needed to be fertilized properly. There’s a lot of plot and a lot of characters to manage, and the romance ended up getting lost in the shuffle. Fans of Melissa Etheridge will enjoy frequent references to her work. For another tale of casual-to-serious lovers, try All the Wrong Places by Karin Kallmaker.

Nicole reviews The Melody of Light by M. L. Rice

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In which I review another book from Bold Strokes Publishing.  This YA drama enters around a girl names Riley, whose childhood has been traumatic – double orphaned and abused by her aunt and uncle, her and her brother Aiden grow up in a foster home where she gets yet more abuse from Mean Girls. As she grows up, she has to learn how to deal with her past and navigate dating as a young lesbian. And, well, that’s it.

First, let’s get the bad out of the way.  The plot lacks suspense or excitement. There’s a prologue which shows Riley in a dramatic moment, and this has been copy-and-pasted directly from the climax of the book. This, to me, is just lazy writing. It also backfired, because I forgot completely about the prologue until I reached that point in the book and realized that it sounded vaguely familiar.

Second, the book is so heavy on the telling and light on the showing that it kind of reads like a really, really, really really long synopsis. “This happened and then this and then this and then she felt this way but then this happened and she realized that this was not an interesting style to read at all.” Basically, as soon as one scene is set up, the reader is whisked away to another scene and given no time to be absorbed by the story.

And third, the characterizations. Riley is the epitome of the Not Like Other Girls.  She finds other girls shallow and vapid and doesn’t understand why everyone isn’t like her, working constantly towards her goals and never relaxing and also being consumed by “demons of fear.”  Throughout the book, however, Riley displays very little personality. Her responses are limited to responding in abject fear or unreasonable anger to situations, with no real in-between.

I can’t mention Riley’s characterization without mentioning the Other Girls as well. During her time in a group home, she gets intensely bullied both by the girls she lives with and the ones she goes to school with. This seems more like a gimmicky plot device on Rice’s part to make Riley a more sympathetic character with an even more traumatic past, because the bullying seems all out of place and the reactions to it vague at best. Having been a girl who went to high school, I am aware that bullying does occur, but if it gets to the levels described here, something is usually done about it. And not everyone in the world is a bully, yet Riley has no friends, or even acquaintances, during high school. Not a one. Zip. Nada. All other girls are described as faceless, shallow beings who exist purely to torment her.

In college, these faceless girls are given a name and a voice in the form of Riley’s new roommate, Brooke. Brooke goes out drinking and partying, has a boyfriend, and is mean to Riley. Again, Other Girl syndrome. Luckily, as Riley overcomes her problems and makes friends, Brooke kind of symbolically vanishes into the ether, so that’s good I guess.

Alright, enough with the negativity. Let’s talk about the good. Because despite all of the massive problems that this book has, there are some good points as well.

Riley’s relationship with her brother is presented very well. They have a funny, sweet and believable bond that was probably the only thing that kept me reading through the first part of the book. Their repartee, while verging into annoyingly witty at times, was a breath of fresh air after all the telling-not-showing. In fact, I would go so far as to say that dialogue and presenting relationships are Rice’s strengths as a writer.

Which brings me to talking about Riley and her sexuality. She’s a bullied unpopular high school kid, so doesn’t have any relationships then, but her burgeoning awareness of her sexuality is presented casually and naturally. She has no moments of big coming-out declaration – she just knows, and her brother takes it as par for the course. And I think that’s GREAT.  That no matter who you’re attracted to, it’s all equally as valid and real and there’s not always a big climactic coming-out moment.

And again, in college, there’s no drama about ‘finding the other lesbians’ – she just meets girls, who also happen to be gay, and is attracted to them, or becomes friends with them, and that’s cool too.  Because again, we’re not in some secret club and hide out. There are lesbians everywhere! You find us in coffeeshops and bookstores and bars and recital halls! Again, normalizing the LGBTQ community is fantastic.

The relationships that Riley builds in college are also done fairly well and probably my favorite part of the book. I could see a young me relating to her in her struggles to navigate the gay dating scene – because it’s not like we get any tips from mainstream media. And this point, that her relationships are valid and fairly well-written and relatable – is the main redeeming feature of The Melody of Light. It’s the only reason I’d recommend it to someone.

If you’re looking for an exciting read with high-quality writing, this probably isn’t the book for you. But if you want something featuring high-quality lesbian relationships and a bit of mediocre drama doesn’t put you off, then you may want to check it out.

If you liked this review, you can check out my book review blog at http://booksishouldhavereadalongtimeago.wordpress.com

Kalyanii reviews Tangerine Twist by Suzie Carr

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I’ll admit that I’ve never quite understood the draw of a character who one “loves to hate,” and I’m even more baffled by a character who one “hates to hate” as I did the protagonist of Tangerine Twist. Willing to give virtually anyone a pass for their idiosyncrasies, poor judgement or blatant stupidity, I found it difficult to empathize with the self-absorbed Becca James as she forges ahead on a journey that would have been harrowing and perhaps even poignant if not for her schmaltz and theatrics.

Covering the musicians’ smoke breaks at the local pub where she waits tables, Becca dreams of becoming an accomplished musician herself. With her guitar, Tangerine Twist, slung about her, she keeps her dream alive alongside the memory of her grandfather, who nurtured her aspirations and helped to hone her skills as she plucked the strings of his upright bass when she was a young girl. Yet, since forgetting the lyrics while performing at her grandfather’s funeral, she lacks confidence, which prevents her from coming into her own — both as a musician, always settling for the backup role, and as a woman, puppy-dogging after her lover. This dynamic is witnessed time and time again after she stumbles upon her big break as part of a sizzling hot female duo, for it is her partner, Kara, who commands the stage just as she does Becca’s every insecurity and desire.

Drawn to Kara from the first glance, Becca proves utterly incapable of resisting her allure, the shape of her lips and penchant for the wild side. Given that her relationship with the sweet and wholesome Kelly Copeland has grown a bit stagnant, she barely gives a second thought to her neglect of what truly matters up to the point that Kelly sets her free. Even then, Becca doesn’t view the breakup as a wake-up call but as an excuse to dive headfirst into the dangerous waters of Kara’s reckless lifestyle.

Embracing her new-found freedom and professional success while succumbing to Kara’s naughty-girl influence, Becca adopts a persona that leaves those who care about her angry, hurt and frustrated with the person she has become. However, Becca sees no validity to their concerns until she awakens one morning amid rather sordid circumstances well outside the realm of who she knows herself to be.

There is nothing within me that cares to wax moralistic regarding Becca’s choices or Kara’s propensity for edginess; and, I was pleased to see the author assume a similar stance. On more than one occasion, Carr makes a point of mentioning that her characters, specifically Kara and Kelly, are simply being who they are and that the real issue is that Becca has yet to find herself. Thus, at the end of the day, Tangerine Twist is a story about the cultivation of self-awareness and the courage to live one’s truth.

Although well-written overall, I found specific passages to be rather clumsy. It seemed at times that Carr was attempting to be more literary than was natural or appropriate. On one occasion, she describes Kelly’s hair as “shining just like ice.” At another point, the exposed stuffing from Becca’s bulging couch cushions looks “like an unkempt beard lacking the melanin of youth.” Then, there is the mechanic whose smile is “as clean as freshly laundered sheets.” The use of simile, as exemplified above, came across as awkward and detracted from the story itself. In the same vein, I would have done anything for Becca’s guitar to be named something other than Tangerine Twist. It just didn’t work for me.

Had Becca been a more likeable character, I wouldn’t have had the slightest reservation in touting Tangerine Twist as a truly outstanding work of LGBT fiction. Sadly, she wasn’t presented in a manner such that empathy could arise. She simply felt like that high-maintenance, high-drama friend who we all try desperately to avoid. Nevertheless, a part of me wonders if it isn’t the mirroring of the ugliest parts of our nature that incites our aversion to Becca, leaving us to seek redemption, just as she does, in uncovering our most genuine sense of self.