Jenna Hilary Sinclair

I am 50% in and I must to stop reading for the reasons of sanity.

There is no plot, the story simply goes from one date to another. There is a lot of (way over the top for my personal comfort) whining and hinting at some gay bashing incident that we are yet to be let on. Tom is perpetually scared and miserable (granted, understandable, but too drawn out), hiding the fact that he is gay from everyone for the past 16 years.

Well, dang... Don't feel comfortable in Texas? There are other states, all 49 of them. Plus the rest of the world.

I feel claustrophobic stuck inside Tom's head - he doesn't let the reader out much, making sure we don't miss a single complaint. He is miserable and we must be too, along with him.

There is a lot of mentioning how good and helpful people of a certain town in Texas are, yet there is also mentioning on how eager they will be to do you harm if they knew you were gay. What a cheerful, helpful and caring bunch! Yeah!!! *waves flags and blows horns* ...not really.

****

Picked it up the book again today while "at sea" (been cruising the Caribbean). What the difference! The second half was amazing. Loved it! Just wish the author skipped about 200 pages in the first half (600 total on my iBooks).

Total - 3.7 stars. Rounding down, since the profound boredom of the first half is still too vivid (oxymoron? O.o - lol) in my mind.

… (mere)

I fell in love with Jenna Hilary Sinclair's writing while reading [b:Admit One|7142600|Admit One|Jenna Hilary Sinclair|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1337649210s/7142600.jpg|7406870]. In this story of Harry & Mike, she does not disappoint! These characters are real men in real situations. They are not perfect but accept each other's foibles with true trust and love.

I do have one teeny, tiny complaint. While hints were given about Harry and Mike's past, the information was not enough to answer the many questions that arose in my mind. I guess I just want to know more about these two wonderful characters.… (mere)

Mysterious indeed, this story has a touch of the fantastical. While Greg’s struggle with his old faith and how to incorporate his deep longing for male companionship is heart-wrenchingly real, the occasional ‘interventions’ of what looks like an elf push him to challenge what he was taught. The learning is slow and thoughtful, as it should be. Years of faith can either be discarded, which is what Corey ended up doing, or the new information needs to be integrated into the new reality. It is a more difficult task, and I thought it was fascinating how Greg does it.

Greg doesn’t set out to do all this. He is deeply conflicted and completely separate from his faith. Not that he wants to be, but he thinks he has no choice. As he meets Cory and starts to really think things through, as his longing to be with Corey grows, he begins to realize a few things. He matured as I was reading, and I loved that. It wasn’t easy for Greg, no quick solutions here, but it made the story more interesting and far more real.

Corey is more sure about himself than Greg, both in the area of his faith (which he has rejected) and his sexuality. He is amazingly patient and very supportive of Greg. We don’t find out a lot about him since Greg tells the story, but I’d like to see more of him. The glimmer of hope about his siblings wanting to see him (despite his parents having kicked him out) was a very nice ‘Christmas-y’ touch.

If you like to read stories about men who struggle with their faith, who learn to think for themselves and who end up making up their own rules, you will probably like this story.




NOTE: This book was provided by Dreamspinner Press for the purpose of a review on Queer Magazine Online… (mere)