Extra Virgin

THIS STORY HAS IT ALL. LOVE, HATE, LOSS, BETRAYAL AND MOST OF ALL THE LOVE OF 2 GAY MEN WHO FINALLY UNDERSTAND & GET IT. WHAT'S IMPORTANT. ACTUALLY IT'S PRETTY SIMPLE, BUT MOST OVER THINK, MANIPULATE & EVER ABUSE UNTIL IT'S NOTHING.
THIS BOOK HAS IT,,…
THE LOVE OF 2 MEN WILLING TO GIVE UP EVERYTHING TO PROTECT THE OTHER..HIS EVERYTHING..

LOVE IT

TRACE DIAL

Poor character Development; Blah storyline; mediocre climax, including the “big O”:

Extremely annoying, and barely relatable characters with almost non-existent character development. Everytime more than a day pases by for the very general storyline, the story just skips the time and has no reflection or growth over events. Maybe once or twice a reference is made, crammed into the dialogue of the next scene that sums up how the previous experience was “always on his mind” over the time since, but the main character remains an annoying, and willfully undeveloped and ignorant bystander to the story happening to him.

I think the most annoying part in the storyline is toward the end when the author starts to alternate character perspectives. The story begins to change voices, in a way that brings no real substance to the plot, and if anything only serves to allow the brief and disappointing “love scene” in the last chapter to have a “Dom” edge to it, since the undeveloped virginal character had to literally be told to accept sex in the end after finally being convinced to forget his long-time crush and go with the hot, and protective stranger guy.

For the few chapters where we alternate back and forth between these character perspectives, the story plays out in one scene, then jumps backward in the next perspective to retell it from the other character’s POV, but becomes chaotic in the flow of time, and doesn’t end in the same place entirely as the previous chapter/viewpoint. It was aggravating and disorganized and disorienting to read the ending chapters.

The climax of the main character finally realizing he was about to be taken advantage of by the high school crush in a “threesome” scenario with a secret “Top” boyfriend was such a nondescript experience; after the character of Robbie had basically been a juvenile moron and a doormat for years of time up to this point in the story, it was unbelievable that suddenly he had this intuitive breakthrough and bypassed what would have essentially been a grave manipulation and potential sexual assault, to finally make the right decision and go for the “Good Guy,” instead. It just wasn’t believable for the way he was written. He had absolutely zero redeeming qualities and then suddenly is perceptive to what’s going on? I’m glad the character gets to avoid a traumatic experience, but he never really learned anything along the way. It was all so unrealistic that it was impossible to lose myself in any of the characters in order to enjoy the brief erotic fantasy elements.

And finally, on that note: erotic fantasy here equals vague teasing and ultra slow burn for the “prize” of maybe a few paragraphs of intimacy in the final pages, but no passion. What was built as erotic awakening throughout winds up with basically a few moments of “just let go and trust me to show you the ropes,” [Brandon] and “ok, oh yeah, this is great and feels so good,” [Robbie] and then a promise that this is only the beginning, and now that the characters are “together forever,” the sex is also going to just get better over time….. ok, but you gotta give me something to make me believe that. This book was a let down the whole way through. Thank godZ it was short so I didn’t have to struggle too hard to get through it.