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EPistols At Dawn (2009)

by Z.A. Maxfield(Favorite Author)

3.76 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

1605046183 (ISBN13: 9781605046181)

languge

English

genre

Romance

publisher

Samhain Publishing

review 1: ok, what's not good here? there is too much plot convolution. there is some stuff i find hard to believe: would a paper specializing in outing gay men for the greater cause care whether a parody of a beloved classic is penned by a straight woman? i dunno -- i guess the lambda literary people cared on whom they bestowed their award, so maybe my mind isn't petty enough to conceive of it; the paper does come across as a bit of a rag. furthermore, jae is not busy enough; he's getting all this time to work on some small piece of gossip. i didn't buy it. vega's character is unsatisfying -- is he an asshat (the way he treated will sounded ass-like to me, but will didn't seem to see it that way, and later he is decent to jae and kelly). i also don't really get WHY kelly wrot... moree the parody the way he did, because it sounds perfectly hideous from the small excerpt we see. i see a distinct difference between parody and badfic. there are also gaping holes in will's back story, and the fact that somebody tried to kill him is dealt with far too lightly. kelly's disabiliies are also a little conveniently portrayed as mostly charmingly eccentric rather than debilitating when it is perfectly clear that they actually ARE debilitating. and lastly there is instaluv, not something i am fond of (i get my greatest romance pleasure by far from the journey to love, rather than the fated overs overcoming obstacles).that all said this still gets 5 stars from me because i love that mental illness is taken seriously and yet does not prevent love and sex (though it can make sex ... trying -- we have here the best coitus interruptus scene ever). this is such a rarity in the genre that it alone elevates the book for me. and i love the characters -- i sorta wish for will to have his own book, and in some way i was hoping for some happy polyamory, but i am just as happy with a close, loving relationship that falls outside the clearly delinated boxes into which society tries to shove us. the writing is wonderful; the dialogue witty, and i want to hang out with these guys. this is a unique story in a field in which so much is same-old-same-old pablum, so even with all its flaws, it rises above the crowd.and somewhere in there, in the way these guys relate to each other, is a piece of magic that i can't put my fingers on, but that made me cry. it'll be a while before i read this again, but i will.
review 2: For some reason, I am drawing a blank trying to write this review. Overall, I liked this book. It had a decent storyline and I liked the characters with all their personality flaws (Jae was yummy). I think the reason I didn't rate it higher was that I felt it only covered the storyline superficially without going into the details I wanted to read about. I had purchased this book because it was on The Best Humorous Gay Romances Listopia list, but I didn't laugh once. This is not a reflection on the author or does it mean it not a good book. It just means I personally don't think it should be on this list. less

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