Re-review: Whiteout by Elyse Springer

My original review is here. I'll copy some of my original thoughts, but add others that occurred to me in light of other people's reviews. (Previously, I considered Whiteout a 3-star read out of 5 stars, but now I think it's closer to 2 stars.)

Whiteout by Elyse Springer
Genre: Contemporary, mystery
Pairing: MM
Orientations: Gay

So. I am a sucker for amnesia stories. They're my kryptonite. The fastest way to get me to read a book is to say the main character has amnesia.

I enjoyed the twist of the book. It's rare that I'm surprised by a twist and it used the amnesia in an interesting way, so that was cool.

Other than that, though...the book was nice, but very romance-trope-y. Too much so for my tastes. The second half of the book was boringly predictable, everything wraps up very neatly, and so on.

I also felt that the writing didn't wring out the emotional responses enough in certain places, and Noah felt way younger than a 29-year-old to me. Plus, Jason didn't strike me as more than a 2-dimensional character, and because of that, I never felt really enthusiastic about Noah and Jason's relationship. Jason even makes a comment at some point along the lines that he likes the fact that Noah is distant, because it keeps Noah interesting to him. My reaction to that was "WTF?" A relationship in which the partners have to keep distant from each other to keep things exciting...doesn't strike me as a long-lasting relationship.

What lowers this book to 2 stars, for me, is the fact that when you think about Noah and Jason's relationship in retrospect, it's actually severely messed up, which makes Noah's attempts to win Jason back in the second half of the story feel disingenuous. (Not to mention, the way he went around it felt very YA to me, not what I would expect of two adults.)

( Cut for SPOILERS )