Hmmmm. I read 'Muscling through' quite by chance and had really enjoyed it so I downloaded this onto my kindle with a little hope in my heart.............really disappointed. There is so much wrong here. Jude, the hero, is appalling and not really believable. He is whiney and self obsessed and you really want to just give him a good shaking. I worry saying that just in case his character leaps up and says I am being anti gay or homophobic but I am not in any way shape or form. He is just 100% arse. I loathe him not because he is gay but because he is a waste of good data space on my kindle. His lover, David,is equally appalling but for different reasons but is still a false and unconvincing character. He is a muscular fit bloke and moves from being a closeted gay who sleeps with his equally butch and muscley ex to being a muscular fit bloke who for some ridiculous reason realizes that all he ever needed to be out and proud was to fall for a mincing queen of the first order. Jude does not make sense. He is not a believable character and from this lack of real the whole book implodes. The dialogue is very artificial and, as I have seen mentioned elsewhere, it is shoe-horned in just so as to enable Jude to sound witty(ish) and clever(ish). Jude speaks street, writes doggerel, plays the violin and is camp as Christmas. Oh and he is willowy and looks very young. The plot is hacked out of a block of lifeless polystyrene. What I found endearing and only a little frustrating in 'Muscling through' here I found rampantly maddening. The stupidity of people who do not communicate or leap to conclusions or the contrived nature of almost every situation so as to enable misunderstanding and confusion to drag the story out for many many more pages then was needed. 'Muscling through' was a lovely book in its own way; this thing takes all the downside of that book with none of the positives. None of the characters convinced really and don't get me started on Keisha and Lauren.......for the love of God.... 4.5 starsThis is such an amusing book. The humour throughout the storyline kept me chuckling :) A couple of times the jokes felt a bit forced, but it provided a richness at other times that completed outweighing any reservations. And unlike some other readers, I loved that this story was about ALL the ppl in Jude's life - it was not solely focused on the romance. My only real complaint was that the ending was pretty quick and not totally resolved.
Do You like book Slam! (2013)?
I find something really disturbing about that cover O_O
—Maria
Snarky, funny and, oh my god, Jude. Perfect.
—Sarah
