2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Dialogue is laughably bad, October 6, 2005
There is "good news" and "bad news" about the existence of do-it-yourself publishing houses like I-Universe. The good news is that anyone can have their book published. The bad news is that ANYone can have their book published!
I bought this book sight-unseen, based on its summary at Amazon. The story sounded promising: A gay couple, Scott and Vallie, decide to adopt a gay teenager, Nicholas, who previously lived in a deeply homophobic foster home. While making the transition to responsible parents, they also try to instill in Nicholas a sorely-lacking sense of self-worth, and assure him that they will not "give up" on him, as everyone else has before in his life. With help from wisecracking gay Uncle Ben, who lives with them, they help Nicholas through the move to their rural home, coping with a new school complete with a fag-baiting bully. Sounded like a good start to what could be an interesting story.
Unfortunately, the author (who has one previous title to his credit, also self-published) doesn't develop the story beyond the brief summary I just gave you. What is much worse is that the author's writing style is borderline awful, telling the entire story in a predictable manner, using unrealistic dialogue that seems to alternate between condescending detail and singsong-ish "See Spot Jump" meter. For example, when a giraffe is seen on a trip to the zoo, one character alerts the others to "look at his elongated neck!" (Do YOU know anyone who talks like that?) If Uncle Ben walks into the room, and there are five other characters already there, you can bet the ranch that the next five lines will read, verbatim, "'Hi, Uncle Ben!' said (name of character)." If there is an annoucement that pizza is for dinner, it will be followed by virtually identical separate comments by each person that they love pizza.
I thought perhaps the book was meant for younger readers, although there was no indication anywhere that this was the case. While not sexually explicit, the subject matter isn't really appropriate for anyone below junior high or high school age, and they deserve better than the eye-rolling dialogue delivered. It's a shame, since the book's subject is a rather original and timely idea, which could have been better developed by an author with even marginal storytelling skill. Sorry, but my TWO out of five stars on this one is quite generous.
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