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Not only is the world a dumpster fire, but so is my life right now. I've spent several weeks trying to schedule a doctor's appointment (and I'm still trying to schedule it), my apartment is crumbling, and I've been double-taxed for something. Any one of these issues I could deal with, but all of them combined? I can't handle so many problems at once, and having them looming over my head is killing me.
Also, thanks to said recent stresses (but mostly the health issue), I've once more overshot my deadline for querying Novel #3 again. New deadline is by the end of this month, assuming I can finally see a doctor soon, but my anxiety has been worsening over time because I'm, by now, mostly convinced that the agent who gave me the R&R has probably lost interest.
Anyway, I'm back because I wanted to write a review for a book I read recently.
Inside Affair by Ella Frank
Genre: Contemporary romance / romantic suspense, MM romance
Honestly, the main reasons I'm tempted to rate this book 4/5 stars are because it was compulsively readable, I've been in a reading slump for several months, I really liked the fact that one of the main characters was a news anchor and his job was described well, and this is probably the most convincing setup for a "fake gay boyfriend" that I've ever encountered.
The basic summary of this book is that Xander Thorne, a nationally famous news anchor, starts getting threatening messages from an obsessed stalker and needs to hire a bodyguard. He goes to Sean Bailey, the brother of his best friend and detective with the CPD, for advice, and Sean volunteers himself for the job, even though Xander and Sean often get on each other's nerves. Sean decides that they need to draw the stalker into the open and, therefore, his cover story for sticking by Xander's side 24/7 is to pretend to be his boyfriend, even though Sean identifies as straight.
Again, the writing style was probably the best part of the book. I've had trouble getting through a lot of romances lately, and reading a book that I could blow through in one day was a breath of fresh air.
Yet I'm conflicted with this book, because even though I was entertained by it, there were some parts of it that were...not so good.
My main issue is that this book reads a lot like a "gay for you" story, a trope that was mostly rampant in the early days of MM romance but that I thought had died down with the rise of bi/pansexual awareness. Now, to be fair, Sean doesn't settle on a label in this book (which ends on a cliffhanger, by the way), so maybe he'll identify as bi in the future. But I went to Amazon and skimmed the summaries of this author's other books, and, uh...it seems like she has a thing for the "gay for you" (or at least, straight-identifying man suddenly realizes he's attracted to guys) trope in general, so I'm a little wary.
This goes hand in hand with the fact that Inside Affair is one of those MM romances that gave me a sense, while I was reading it, that if I hadn't known the author's name, I would've assumed she was a straight woman. It's not the worst offender in this respect, but again, there's something about the way the romance develops that reminds me of how MF romances are written.
Finally, a detail—there was one plot event that didn't really seem to make sense (if Xander's stalker wants him, why would he try to kill him all of a sudden? At least, without a "if I can't have him, no one else can" monologue to accompany it), and that seems to have been included just for the sake of moving the romance forward via a brush with death, which I always feel is sloppy plotting.
(I was also somewhat disappointed by the stalker's identity, though I guess it made sense.)
I wanted to expand for a moment on Inside Affair as a "gay for you" book / book that reminds me of MM romance in the early 2010s. I don't identify as a gay man, so I won't speak for them, but I frequently see on Twitter how gay men have pushed against the tropes and writing styles that dominated the genre earlier on, when many straight female authors were being published.
And "gay for you" is a good example of a trope that has been popular among straight women, due to the way it incorporates a sense of "forbidden" romance—at the cost of erasing bi/pansexuality, and also only focusing on one possible bi/pansexual experience. (There is also something a little creepy about constantly wishing straight men would turn out to be gay.)
When I talk about "books that make me think the author is a straight woman," I'm often thinking of books that have two male leads, yet the way they act is very similar to how a MF romance would be written; specifically, one of the men seems to map on to the female lead and the other one maps on to the male lead in a MF romance. This is of course a subjective standard without bright lines, but whenever I feel that way while reading a gay romance, I get really uncomfortable. (As I mentioned above, Inside Affair just about toes the line—Xander's character seemed to me that it would've been almost identical if he was a female lead in an MF romance, with Sean taking on the unambiguously "male lead" role, although at the same time Xander's behavior was totally believable as someone who's been targeted by a stalker.) (Another way a gay romance can make me think the author is a straight woman is based on how the sexual attraction is written—though that's even more nebulous since I'm not only not a gay man, I'm also ace. But it's a feeling I get sometimes when I compare these books to ownvoices gay romances.)
Again, I thought these tropes had largely died out because of general queer activism, yet apparently they're alive and well in the form of Amazon self-published books. I look at the reviews and ratings for books like Ella Frank's, and it's clear these tropes are still popular among, shall we say, a certain audience.
And isn't that discomfiting? That despite how much actual gay men and bisexual/pansexual folks have pushed for better representation, there are still people who want to read these kinds of books.
Sigh.
Also, thanks to said recent stresses (but mostly the health issue), I've once more overshot my deadline for querying Novel #3 again. New deadline is by the end of this month, assuming I can finally see a doctor soon, but my anxiety has been worsening over time because I'm, by now, mostly convinced that the agent who gave me the R&R has probably lost interest.
Anyway, I'm back because I wanted to write a review for a book I read recently.
Inside Affair by Ella Frank
Genre: Contemporary romance / romantic suspense, MM romance
Honestly, the main reasons I'm tempted to rate this book 4/5 stars are because it was compulsively readable, I've been in a reading slump for several months, I really liked the fact that one of the main characters was a news anchor and his job was described well, and this is probably the most convincing setup for a "fake gay boyfriend" that I've ever encountered.
The basic summary of this book is that Xander Thorne, a nationally famous news anchor, starts getting threatening messages from an obsessed stalker and needs to hire a bodyguard. He goes to Sean Bailey, the brother of his best friend and detective with the CPD, for advice, and Sean volunteers himself for the job, even though Xander and Sean often get on each other's nerves. Sean decides that they need to draw the stalker into the open and, therefore, his cover story for sticking by Xander's side 24/7 is to pretend to be his boyfriend, even though Sean identifies as straight.
Again, the writing style was probably the best part of the book. I've had trouble getting through a lot of romances lately, and reading a book that I could blow through in one day was a breath of fresh air.
Yet I'm conflicted with this book, because even though I was entertained by it, there were some parts of it that were...not so good.
My main issue is that this book reads a lot like a "gay for you" story, a trope that was mostly rampant in the early days of MM romance but that I thought had died down with the rise of bi/pansexual awareness. Now, to be fair, Sean doesn't settle on a label in this book (which ends on a cliffhanger, by the way), so maybe he'll identify as bi in the future. But I went to Amazon and skimmed the summaries of this author's other books, and, uh...it seems like she has a thing for the "gay for you" (or at least, straight-identifying man suddenly realizes he's attracted to guys) trope in general, so I'm a little wary.
This goes hand in hand with the fact that Inside Affair is one of those MM romances that gave me a sense, while I was reading it, that if I hadn't known the author's name, I would've assumed she was a straight woman. It's not the worst offender in this respect, but again, there's something about the way the romance develops that reminds me of how MF romances are written.
Finally, a detail—there was one plot event that didn't really seem to make sense (if Xander's stalker wants him, why would he try to kill him all of a sudden? At least, without a "if I can't have him, no one else can" monologue to accompany it), and that seems to have been included just for the sake of moving the romance forward via a brush with death, which I always feel is sloppy plotting.
(I was also somewhat disappointed by the stalker's identity, though I guess it made sense.)
I wanted to expand for a moment on Inside Affair as a "gay for you" book / book that reminds me of MM romance in the early 2010s. I don't identify as a gay man, so I won't speak for them, but I frequently see on Twitter how gay men have pushed against the tropes and writing styles that dominated the genre earlier on, when many straight female authors were being published.
And "gay for you" is a good example of a trope that has been popular among straight women, due to the way it incorporates a sense of "forbidden" romance—at the cost of erasing bi/pansexuality, and also only focusing on one possible bi/pansexual experience. (There is also something a little creepy about constantly wishing straight men would turn out to be gay.)
When I talk about "books that make me think the author is a straight woman," I'm often thinking of books that have two male leads, yet the way they act is very similar to how a MF romance would be written; specifically, one of the men seems to map on to the female lead and the other one maps on to the male lead in a MF romance. This is of course a subjective standard without bright lines, but whenever I feel that way while reading a gay romance, I get really uncomfortable. (As I mentioned above, Inside Affair just about toes the line—Xander's character seemed to me that it would've been almost identical if he was a female lead in an MF romance, with Sean taking on the unambiguously "male lead" role, although at the same time Xander's behavior was totally believable as someone who's been targeted by a stalker.) (Another way a gay romance can make me think the author is a straight woman is based on how the sexual attraction is written—though that's even more nebulous since I'm not only not a gay man, I'm also ace. But it's a feeling I get sometimes when I compare these books to ownvoices gay romances.)
Again, I thought these tropes had largely died out because of general queer activism, yet apparently they're alive and well in the form of Amazon self-published books. I look at the reviews and ratings for books like Ella Frank's, and it's clear these tropes are still popular among, shall we say, a certain audience.
And isn't that discomfiting? That despite how much actual gay men and bisexual/pansexual folks have pushed for better representation, there are still people who want to read these kinds of books.
Sigh.
