Nell IrisRecensioni

This was a cute quick read for me! It is such a current concept i can totally see this happening in RL.

Moses and Eddy, second chances at love and happiness!

Is there is a story that betrays the spirit of the legend of the Phoenix, this is it: there's no resilience, there's no a man finding meaning to life from unspeakable pain (Viktor Frankl, how necessary it's to read you).

Here we have just a young man immersed in pain, who gives signs of not getting over it (still living in the same apartment, for God's sake!); someone who doesn't seem to have the psychiatric support that he had and which he still needs, despite having people who care about him.

There must be many ways in which a hate crime and its effects can be addressed, even with a tragic tone from start to finish; here, nothing seems believable to me. And especially I don't like when a story is gimmicky, and it's no more than a low blow after another.

For stories of utter despair, there has been already a Hans Christian Andersen and his little match-seller... in the 19th century.

3.5 stars

I received Unconditionally through the Goodreads ‘Don’t Buy My Love’ program. The story is told in third person through the eyes of Luca Moretti, a flamboyant book café owner, and Gus Hansen, a geeky doctor.



The blurb gives good info on what the plot is about so I won’t go over it again. What I will do, is summarize why I don’t agree with the majority of the other reviewers.

Positives:

1) I didn’t find many SPAG issues, only a few incorrect words, so I’ll say this book is pretty well edited.
2) The character I liked the best was Luca. The author described his personality and clothing well so I could picture him in my head.
3) The plot idea is cute.

Those three points are the only things I found good about this book. Now on to the issues that didn’t work.


Negatives:

1) Gus is a Marty Stu. If you don’t know what a Marty Stu is, it’s the male version of a Mary Sue. There’s nothing wrong with Gus. He’s perfect. We know this because Luca keeps telling us this and thinking it, and because Gus’ mother tells him so we readers know what a good man he is. All this is mentioned over and over again throughout the story. Perfect characters are difficult to relate to because they lack depth, they have no flaws to give them added dimension. Even comic book characters have flaws. I couldn’t relate to Gus because of his impossible perfection.
2) This may be a personal preference, but the issue that occurred at the wedding was too easily solved as soon as Gus found Luca. If there’s going to be conflict, make it worth the readers time to create an interesting conflict and resolution, not something solved with a snap of the fingers.
3) The epilogue wasn’t necessary. The last chapter before the epilogue had a perfect ending. The epilogue could’ve been used as a short story written for the author’s blog or newsletter. Instead, tacking it on at the end of the story made it feel out of place and ruined the previous chapter’s better ending.
4) Telling! So much telling! Despite this being a short book, I pushed myself to finish because the telling numbed my mind. This story is ninety percent telling, and ten percent dialogue. Monologue after long monologue, by both men, about what they thought about the other person, about events in their past, about their relationship with other people, about green rugs! Other readers seem okay with reading a book that tells instead of shows as indicated by this books ratings, but I prefer a writer who can pull me into a story by showing so my emotions are engaged, as well as my imagination. This book never did that.

In the end, the fact that the story was predominately told disappointed me and didn’t engage my emotions enough to care what happened to Luca or Gus. I was glad when the book was over. I realize most other readers give it a good rating despite the poor writing, but I can’t in all honesty do that. This is a cute book and I liked Luca, but that doesn’t offset the monotonous telling. If the author rewrote this book to show instead of tell, and fleshed it out a little bit, then the book would be worthy of maybe, four stars. However, as it is, it only gets 2 Stars because of the telling and I cannot recommend it.

Red Popcorn Strings and Gumball Rings is the story of Casey and Ellis, a young couple very much in love, but also very poor. The story is told in third person through both their eyes.

This sweet Christmas story presents the idea that no matter how poor a person is, love and having someone to love you back, is enough. People can make do with the bare minimum and it’s good enough.

Casey and Ellis live in a trailer home in a town that doesn’t look kindly on gays, let alone gay couples. The men get by as best they can. Ellis works at an auto body shop. He hopes at some point, the boss will hire him for a permanent position. Casey works at the library, but only for part of the year, so he needs another job. Just scraping by, Ellis finds a discarded Christmas tree and takes it back to their trailer home. Casey is thrilled and they decorate the tree with popcorn.

The author did a great job conveying Casey and Ellis’ living conditions, the love they felt for each other and the kind of background they came from. That’s what makes this different from most of the Christmas stories I’ve read.

The one thing that bothered me about the writing was the author used a lot of monologue. I don’t enjoy reading monologue because it comes across as telling me what happens rather than getting me to experience what the characters experience. Somehow, the author was able to draw me in and feel for Casey and Ellis.

Red Popcorn Strings is a fast, sweet, Christmassy short story and has all the feels of the holiday. I recommend this book to anyone wanting to get into the holiday spirit. I give this book 4 Stars.

I really enjoyed two of the three stories in this collection and would hightly recommend them.

In My Arms Again by Nell Iris

Oh my, this story is lovely. It has a fairy tale feel and is gentle and charming. I know this collection is advertised as an anthology of shifter stories, but this isn't a shifter story in the normal sense and I certainly wouldn't class it as such.


Weekend at Bigfoot's by Addison Albright

I loved this. It was so much fun. I adored the set up and the 'Bigfoot' headlines. The two leads were endearing and really cute together. The town was goregous, just the sort of place I'd love to visit. The only thing I didn't like was the cover.

Sweet bunny shifter tale.
Little to no angst.
Short read (just over an hour)

A short read for those looking for something to read in under an hour.
It's best friends to lovers, sexual awakening,
and unrequited love but comes into the story at, what the reader believes, is the point of realisation and deals with the repercussions.
This means that I miss out on the build up of all those unrequited feelings, which are my favourite bit tbh.
It's a solid read with enjoyable characters that I'd liked tho have known better.
Satisfying for a short read.

Very sweet new years romance. Focuses primarily on the meet cute and the following 12 hours, but with a lovely epilogue.
No angst. Low heat.

One of the things I loved about this was that the MC's weren't macho rich guys with everything in the world. This dealt with a couple who is deeply in love with each other, but they don't have much. It was refreshing to see something that could be a bit more realistic and focusing on the true meaning of Christmas. I was touched by the memories of Casey's mom, and my heart went out to both guys as they dealt with family. I loved the ending. Red Popcorn Strings and Gumball Rings--really don't need more than that when you have true love.

Jude and Vincent broke up over 600 days ago, and all of a sudden Vincent is back at his front door wanting a second chance. Jude has struggled with getting over Vincent leaving, and he doesn't want to listen to him, but he also can't let him walk away. Talking, listening, and working through challenges helps bring them back together. I loved the use of music to relay the guys' feelings. My heart just broke for Jude, and I loved getting to watch him get his second chance at happiness.
For a short story, I thought it was done really well. I do wish it were a little longer. I'd love to see more of them, and I'd love to see Benji get his happy story.

I really enjoyed two of the three stories in this collection and would hightly recommend them.

In My Arms Again by Nell Iris

Oh my, this story is lovely. It has a fairy tale feel and is gentle and charming. I know this collection is advertised as an anthology of shifter stories, but this isn't a shifter story in the normal sense and I certainly wouldn't class it as such.


Weekend at Bigfoot's by Addison Albright

I loved this. It was so much fun. I adored the set up and the 'Bigfoot' headlines. The two leads were endearing and really cute together. The town was goregous, just the sort of place I'd love to visit. The only thing I didn't like was the cover.

Sweet bunny shifter tale.
Little to no angst.
Short read (just over an hour)

A short read for those looking for something to read in under an hour.
It's best friends to lovers, sexual awakening,
and unrequited love but comes into the story at, what the reader believes, is the point of realisation and deals with the repercussions.
This means that I miss out on the build up of all those unrequited feelings, which are my favourite bit tbh.
It's a solid read with enjoyable characters that I'd liked tho have known better.
Satisfying for a short read.

Very sweet new years romance. Focuses primarily on the meet cute and the following 12 hours, but with a lovely epilogue.
No angst. Low heat.

This is a short story done right!

First off, it definitely helped that Ellis and Casey were already an established couple, so we didn't have to go through the often-tedious-in-short-stories first meeting and falling in instalove. Nope, this couple is already serious in love with one another, even though they're dirt poor and struggling to eke out an existence in a rather backwards, socially speaking, area. Having come from an area such as this one, it felt completely authentic to me how the setting was portrayed - the family who doesn't want to acknowledge that a child is gay and has pretty much cut him out of their lives, the "we know you're gay but please don't talk about it" coworkers, and the hardscrabble life that often comes from living in such an area, whether you're gay or not.

But even if they had just met, I feel like the author would have done a great job at making their romance feel developed even though the story is short. There's just something about this story that spoke to my heart. It didn't feel fake or rushed at all to me, and in short stories, that is rare for me.

The only problem I really had with this story was the sex scene. Dry anal anything never sounds like a good idea to me, unless you're into serious pain, I guess. I'll give a hard pass to reading about it, too.