Customer Reviews

Regularly Scheduled Life

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Mitchell is a good author who writes the kind of stories I like - layered, thoughtful, angsty. And man, the angst in this one comes from all directions - Sean's troublesome recovery from a terrible injury, the effect on the seemingly perfect relationship, dealing with the involuntary outing in the wake of the shooting, and with a threat to his fidelity from a smarmy yet enticing PR, Brandt (aside: what is it with all these characters called Brandt lately?) Kyle and Sean live in an OKHomo bubble, but they also have to interact with a homophobic world, interactions handled in a way which seemed real to me. She gives us lots of meaty interaction, woven together almost perfectly.

It's not perfect - the whole Brandt making moves on Sean seemed a little incredible, though what Brandt wanted to do with Sean outside the bedroom was quite credible. The angry parent subplot didn't work for me at all, and was unnecessary. But the interactions between Sean and Kyle, them and their friends, their family, were very well done, and the way the `perfect' relationship disintegrates is believable and achingly sad. (I do believe I teared up more than once.) There's no easy way out from the mess, and no perfect, all loose ends tied up, closure, but Mitchell manages to make us believe the recovery when it happens, and it's earned.

Characterisations, apart from Brandt, are realistic and attractive, though I question whether an `Italian-Hispanic' family would have children called Kyle, Elise and Nate. The source of the conflict that grows between them derives from Sean and Kyle's different responses to the shooting - Sean's desperate need to bottle it all in, Kyle's desperate need to help his lover to exorcise his anger at not being able to protect him. They're sappy at times, at times when it's believable they would be, and not when it wouldn't be. They sound like guys, mostly - educated men in love. Tony, Sean's friend who becomes Kyle's rock, is also a wonderful character. The story is populated with deftly drawn bit players.

Brandt, as I mention, is the only odd note, but that's partly because he's the toad in the lily pond anyway - big city mores and urges, intruding into Sean and Kyle's once safe, quiet existence. Mitchell doesn't make the mistake of painting him as black-hearted. Brandt is merely venal, and at the end, he's no different than he was at the beginning. He's exactly how he appears - slick, charming, shallow, and ambitious. So it's not so much his characterisation is off, as the author has created a believably unlikeable yet superficially appealing character.

I liked the writing, and I love how physical and emotional pain mirrors each other, the way she uses settings to illustrate the growing estrangement. The pacing is good, and the complex plot never drags. The only bit where it wobbles is to do with the angry parent, but it's a small flaw. The sex is fine, and not overdone. It's there when it needs to be, to illustrate the relationship, and changes in it.

I enjoyed this a lot, and recommend it highly. At 280+ pages, it's a solid read, and an entertaining one. If you're tired of all the 70 page `novels' being churned out, and want to sink your teeth into something long and involving, you'll enjoy this.

K.A. Mitchell was recommended to me as being "a phenomenal writer of m/m erotica," so what I did expect were at least hot erotic descriptions of sensuality and sex.

I have to say first that I'm quite used to fanfiction slash, both the character pieces, the plotty ones and also PWP: I like them all if well-written. If a story rides in as erotica I expect the physical stuff to be capable of titillating me, or at least to be intriguing to read. I have to state this ahead, so readers understand that the reason why I slate this book isn't any sort of primness.

~~~ spoilers below ~~~

The premise of this story is absolutely great: one partner of a gay couple, a teacher, gets himself shot at a school shooting while overpowering the boy with the gun. Not just that, the guy is also a former jock, he also is still more or less in the closet, as is his partner, and they both are quite well off and in an allegedly functional, great "marriage." People die in the shooting, the teacher is one who survives, with an impaired leg.

This is a brilliant basic story idea, and given a good writer it would have served perfectly to create deep characters, a close look at coming out, at coming to terms with impairment, at how a couple of gay men deal with mental and physical harm and stress, but also at a society that creates hate and self-hate, homophobia and peer pressure capable of provoking such shootings and gay-bashing. That's what I sort of was expecting after reading the accessible blurb.

Unfortunately K.A. Mitchell is so poor a writer, that she not only failed to take up any of the many possibilities this premise threw her way, she managed to keep the characters so shallow, that I was unable to connect with any of them, they all stayed flat and one-dimensional and I was unable to care about them for that reason. She also injected the story with a completely needless amount of IKEA-style sex. In case you wonder, it read about as exciting as an IKEA manual to set up some shelves: nothing was sensual, or erotic, the descriptions were extremely repetitive (which gets really old when within 25 pages you read about 8 different instances of sex) and so formulaic that I was bored to tears after the first 5 chapters and I had to force myself to finish the book.

The plot was equally a dime a dozen and stereotypal. Kyle and Sean came over most times as bitchy, childish juveniles (there wasn't a sliver of maturity to either of them) who never were written deep enough to clarify why they behaved the way they behaved. It was arbitrary - simply because the author decided so and that's the worst you can project about characters. Perhaps most exasperating, apart from the peg-A-into-slot-B-style sex, is how serious topics, like gay-bashing and homophobia, were abused as plot devices without giving them their due. To give an idea of this, Sean outs himself and his partner publicly (to People TV of all things!) without even talking this over with Kyle. Given that Kyle works as an architect/engineer and given the alleged deep love and understanding between the two, this would have to be the nastiest act of underhandedness imaginable.

So, I have a big, a huge problem with the reviews I see here on Amazon, because it really makes me wonder where they come from. They are quite misleading. I've read fanfic which is LIGHTYEARS above and beyond this here! That are stories you get for free and have ready access to on the internet, so anyone who seriously comes to an alleged professional writer for his/her m/m should have read at least a bit of that and have a point against which to grade something neutrally. This is what makes me doubt these reviews here quite a bit.

All said, this book is really something to avoid, it is boring and uninspired.

After six years together, teacher Sean Farnham and architect Kyle DeRusso are their friends' shining example of the perfect relationship. Then in one day everything changes. Sean is shot while stopping a shooting in progress at his school. At first, Kyle is terrified for his lover's life. Afterward, he's afraid things will never get back to normal.

Being shot thrusts Sean into the spotlight, and he sees an opportunity to do something good. Suddenly public appearances and physical therapy are taking over his life. Will Sean and Kyle be able to return to their regularly scheduled life, or will secrets and publicity tear them apart?

Regularly Scheduled Life is a truly heart-wrenching story that really hit hard for me. Everything about it rang true, from the shooting itself to the emotional fallout. Tough, stubborn, self-reliant Sean is unwilling to let Kyle do things for him and determined to bring hope out of tragedy. I sympathized with him even when I wanted to smack him for hiding his pain from Kyle. Kyle wants to understand what Sean is going through, but at the same time he just wants things to go back to normal. He struggles to hold back his temper and do what Sean needs, even when Sean doesn't want to let him. Kyle made a lot of mistakes too, but he seemed more vulnerable and I just wanted to hug him. The secondary characters--Sean and Kyle's families, their friends Jack and Tony, the publicist, Brandt, and students and families affected by the shooting--are very well done and believable. KA Mitchell did an excellent job of writing about a painful and tragic issue with sensitivity, emotion, and realism. While Regularly Scheduled Life isn't an easy or lighthearted read, I am very glad I read it.

Cassie
Reviewed for Joyfully Reviewed

Have ever wondered what happens after an happily ever after? And when love seems to be too much to bear?

Kyle and Sean are a perfect couple. They met in college and had an affair of a couple of nights, but Kyle was too young and maybe still wanted to "play" around; and so Sean let him grow up and when they met a second time Sean was more insistent. After a close wooing, Sean staked his claim and convinced Kyle to move to Small Town USA to live in a marriage bliss. Now six years later they are like sugar for a rot, they are almost unbearable for how much happy they are... or not? The changes Kyle had to do, the jealousy of Sean, the little trouble from two apparently supportive families... are they all boiling under the surface waiting to blow up?

The domino effect is a tragic event: Sean is a teacher in an high school and a student gone mad starts a shooting; before Sean has the chance to stop him, the boy killed three person, one of them a little girl. Aside the fact that Sean shouldn't be the one assigned to stop him, nevertheless he feels guilty to not stop him in time. Obviously he becomes an hero and hearing all the people around him telling so maybe alleviates that sense of guilty: if everyone thinks he is an hero, maybe they are right and he is wrong, since inside himself Sean thinks he hasn't done enough, and the few people that accuse him seem to have a strong voice.

And Kyle? Since now he was the one to need reassurance; he is the man who was wooed and coaxed, and maybe he needs to stay in center stage to feel important: him, the hispanic-italian guy from a family with too much sons to make them feel all important, now has a lover who thinks he is the sun and that all turn around him... till the day the sun is shut down, and Kyle finds himself in the role of the caretaker. And maybe Sean, once in a time, finds nice to be the object of such devotion.

This good perspective on the situation is given to the reader and not to the main characters, since nor Sean or Kyle voice their uneasiness for the situation and for more than half the book try to hide it behind the sexual chemistry that never lack to them. But when also the sex is no more enough, Kyle and Sean will have to understand that going back is not possible, above all since what they had maybe was not as perfect as they thought.

The book is pretty long, 300 pages, and it's not a story you can read in an hurry. It's not light but it's not even too angst: I like that K.A. Mitchell manages to recreate a believable conflict between the two men without never make them forget that they are in love and so they still care for each other and don't want to make the other suffer. In comparison to the previous stories I read by the same author, in this one she seemed more contained, less flirty. Not that in the other stories she had not faced important matters (like parenthood for a gay father), but this work looks more complete.

I have read this book no less than three times since I bought it last year. I never get tired of going through the roller coaster ride Kyle and Sean find themselves on. It's a refreshing departure from so many other books I have read that focus so much on the sex lives of the main characters. While sex is important in this book too, the real story is about these two wonderful men learning what it is to love someone unconditionally and finding a way to get back to what makes them special as a couple in the face of all the obstacles life throws their way, which is something we can all relate to.

I promise you won't regret purchasing this book or the time it takes to read it. Happy reading!

Laughter, tears, and yearning. Yeah, this book delivers that, and so much more.

There are few times when I've bestowed a "best book" rating on something I've reviewed. The story really has to nab me quick and hold me in my seat. When I picked up Regularly Scheduled Life, I knew I'd like the book, if only that one of the heroes was a teacher. But this book was so much more. Once I started the book, I literally couldn't put it down. I propped it open while I made dinner, because I needed to know what happened next with Kyle and Sean. Yeah, it was that good.

So what hooked me? The emotion and the characters. K.A. Mitchell writes with such intensity that it felt like I was in the room with Kyle and Sean. But where the heavy times could've dragged or been preachy, it was like seeing my two best friends living, loving, and dealing with hardship. The human touch in Ms. Mitchell's work made the story flow, not to mention the pacing.

There are few times when I find myself thinking about a character when I don't have the book in hand. This book was one of those times. I rushed through, savoring every word to know what would happen. Kyle was my favorite character, hands down. Yes, there were times when I wanted him to stand up and show his frustration, but I totally understood his position with Sean. He loved Sean with all his heart. Seeing Sean hurt tore Kyle up inside. If it was possible, I'd have hugged the poor guy.

And then there's Sean. The guy has heart, a big, fuzzy, cares-about-everyone heart. As with Kyle, there were times when I wanted to bop him on the head, but I understood. He'd been shot and wanted people to learn from the situation. Give the man props for thinking about the greater good. He cares about Kyle more than he can say, but as with life so many times, things spiral out of control. That's where I really respected Sean. His reactions were human and something many readers can relate to.

Oh and there is this super hot scene with a glass toy and a little maneuvering--get your head out of the gutter--that made me respect and love them more. Plus it made me squirm in my seat for all the best reasons.

If you want a book that's sure to stick with you long after the last page, then you need to read Regularly Scheduled Life. It's a Best Book, indeed.

Originally posted at Whipped Cream Reviews

I really enjoyed Regularly Scheduled Life. My only problem was the conflicts seemed silly and contrived. After six years I would think the guys would have a better understanding of each other. For the most part though I loved Sean and Kyle and their relationship.

I recommend this book to anyone who likes solid, thought-provoking prose, real issues, and a good cry. At 300 pages, it's a good long read, and I never got bored during it once. Clever wording and compelling plot would have been enough to keep me reading, but the characters had me sold from page one. Sean and Kyle and their friends are endearing and well-developed, and it broke my heart to read their story. This book made me cry more than once, so if you're tender-hearted, make sure you have a box of tissues nearby. Some angsty books have a rather rushed reconciliation at the end, but the ending to this book was realistic and satisfying. I strongly suggest all m/m fans who don't mind getting caught teary-eyed to give it a read.

Loved this book, but I'm not sure how to say what I mean. Just the way the cracks in their relationship got bigger and bigger and they were both trying to fix it (Kyle especially) but it was only making it worse - I don't know. It's a great read if you want an actual emotional story and not just hot sex (though there's that, too!).

This book is complex, well written, and compelling. The story is driven by the conflicts that happen between the characters, more than by external events. That means angst and plenty of it. If you like a heavy, heart wrenching tale with a happy ending, this one is for you. Check out my list mania for more angst-ridden tales. Love it. Would give it more stars if I could.