by Max C. Payne
rating:☆☆
published: 1st June 2016
spoilers? yes
Goodreads
Galley provided by publisher
To be fair to this book, it isn't bad. If I hadn't had quite so many problems with it I might have rated it more highly than this.
First of all, the age difference between the two characters had me a bit dubious. I'm not a huge fan of big gaps so when I read that the narrator was 19 and this other guy was 32, I was... not particularly eager to continue reading, to say the least. What was even worse was that they first met, a fleeting acquaintance as it may have been, when he was only 18, and, coincidence upon coincidence, this other guy happened to be the architect designing the main character's parents' house renovations, when (get this) the main character was in high school. So you can see why I had my reservations. (I mean, he even says "I've wanted you since the first time I saw you, Nick, even if you were jailbait then." #romantic...)
Anyway, I continued reading. And it turned out that Nick (the MC) was pretty highkey misogynistic. I mean, get a load of some of these:
'Squeal worthy,' a girl would say.
It was a woman's job to be nosy.
[he's in there with] the skank of the week...
Lovely. Also, when his girlfriend claims he's using her, his rebuttal is that he's not having sex with her so obviously he can't be using her. Sorry to break it to you, bud, but there are more ways than that to be "using" someone.
The book had a setup where it flipped back and forth between the past and present (which, again, I'm not a huge fan of). It would have been fine, but for the various time skips that were slotted in there. A whole chunk of how they got together was taken up with a time jump, which is never going to convince me to like their relationship.
One mini-point slotted in here: why does Nick's coming out suddenly put him in mortal danger, and result in slights and bullying? Did I miss something? Is he in a ridiculously conservative school? I don't remember reading anything like that. Or maybe it's because he's technically in a relationship with a teacher. Which is just no. I actually hate that idea so much. Because there's such a power imbalance in a relationship like that, and it's just gross. Please don't.
My last point is entirely to do with the author's treatment of Nick's sexuality. There was a point where he mentioned not feeling any attraction to anyone until Eli, at which point I was like, hey! maybe this guy is going to be demisexual! But no such luck. Not even a hint of the d-word being mentioned. Then there's the part where he says gay, straight, bi, asexual: they were all just labels to me..., which is one of my hugest bugbears. I hate books where the minority character (often, just put in there to up the quota) is like, I don't believe in labels. If he had said he didn't want to label himself, or didn't know how to, I wouldn't be so annoyed but it's the we're-all-the-same-really-so-why-make-these-distinctions vibe that gets me with this don't-believe-in-labels crap. Anyway. Onwards.
There's a bisexual character in this! (*cheers*) A bisexual character who fits those gross stereotypes. (*boos*) First off, we're met with the assumption that, because this man is bi, he must always want sex, and he must be indiscriminate about who he has sex with. Thanks. Then, later on, he turns out to be a leering creep who shuts Nick in the bathroom at a club to proposition him and doesn't back off even when Nick says he's there with someone. Double thanks.
One last point on this: Nick describes the bi character as being comfortable with "their alternative sexuality". Alternative to what? Heterosexuality? Because I really don't like this statement. It's basically saying that heterosexuality is the norm and is right, and anything else is "alternative" to that. Also, it has a sense of choice in it, or at least it does to me. I thought we were past thinking of sexuality as a choice.
Finally, I would like to point out this quote:
I knew I looked fuckable.
I have nothing more to say.
0 comments:
Post a Comment