Review forthcoming ( )

This one was a bit of a surprise. From the beginning I never would have expected the full journey that's in store for the reader here. It's more than just Solomon and Adam coming together and Solomon coming to terms with the prospect of their relationship - it's the both of them overcoming everything that's held them back so they can figure out if it's possible for them to move forward together.

That said, I do feel like the story is drawn out just a little, but it's still a good one and very enjoyable. ( )

For being a free short story, it was quite long and complete which was wonderful. It was well written overall. I did feel that it was a *bit* too long (I know...odd since I love longer books) but it felt that it dragged on at points and didn't necessarily need to be as long as it was. Sol and Adam were a great couple and worked well together overall. I did feel that Sol's struggles seemed a bit unclear. We don't really realize he has significant struggles until the book is much later--I wish the build up would have happened earlier as their relationship started or given some indication that Sol had issues. He seemed to have a lack of awareness in the relationship rather than true issues, which ends up not truly being the case. When James was finally mentioned and that story line progressed, I was already annoyed with Sol's flighty attitude and Adam's ridiculous patience so I felt less connected to Sol. An understanding something was going on may have made me feel more connected to Sol throughout the whole story rather than trying to grab sympathy more than half way through the book. Sol's wife annoyed me a lot, too. Marriage of convenience--no problem, but to do exactly what Sol was doing and then get mad at him for doing it? Ugh. ( )

I was happily surprised by this story, though I’m not sure if the reason I was expecting not to like it should actually matter. It’s not the first time other people feel very differently about a book from me.

It’s full of funny banter, great humor, and semi-British writing. (The latter was slightly confusing to me since I couldn’t decide if I felt the author was British and trying to Americanize their writing, or American trying to do British. Turned out to be they’re British, which left me feeling a little disappointed: the book wasn’t “British enough” for me. Weird, I know.)

In addition to the aforementioned things I liked about the book, I also liked the main characters, Sol and Adam. But they were also weird! (A lot of weirdness going on with this one.) How they got together lacked so totally credibility it was almost ridiculous, but when they were together it was somehow very intense. I can’t think of a better word to describe it. It was almost instalove, but not quite, even if they did move in together only a few weeks after they first met.

I didn’t like Sol’s (ex-) wife, Elise. For a person in a marriage of convenience she seemed to forget the reason they were married. She acted like a woman scorned from the moment the story began to the moment she was out of it. Even if they had mutually agreed to keeping their extra-marital affairs discreet, I really don’t get why she would expect Sol not to feel anything for another man. I really didn’t like her or the marriage thing and how it was presented.

Altogether, it was a really confusing read and hard to rate. If it wasn’t for the marriage thing and some of the juvenile actions from both Sol and Adam, it could very well have been a 5 star read. But it could also very easily have been a 3 star read.

Strange book. In a good way. ( )