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A review by eesh25
Aftermath by L.A. Witt
3.0
Unlike the fourth book, which was fast-paced and interesting, this one just dragged on and on. And when it ended, I honest-to-god said, "Thank fuck," out loud.
The book started off great. It's about Jon and Brent. Jon is a recently divorced man with a ten-year-old son, who's still trying to adjust to being single after twenty years. Whereas Brent is a 29-year-old former NHL player who was severely injured in a car crash. He's still recovering from his injuries and coming to terms with the end of his career, and that he'll be in chronic pain for the rest of his life and will never gain the mobility that he had.
Both parts of the story were good, and they were done so well. We got to hear about both their struggles. I mean, a divorce after twenty years is bound to be a shock. And severe injuries like Brent's? I loved the care and attention the author devoted to the effects the injuries had on his life and his psyche. Both the characters were also very likable, and they had the sweetest relationship.
The problem arose about halfway through when it started to become more and more obvious how repetitive the book was getting. The characters understandably have doubts, and they think about them often. And a lot of the time, it's the same doubt that's come to haunt them again. We didn't need a long inner monologue reiterating the things we read just a couple of chapters ago. Instead of two pages of the same thing, you could've just alluded to the character's thoughts, that they were the same as before, in a single paragraph. Though really, the book was verbose in general, even when it wasn't repetitive.
You know what this book needed? An editor who could chop off 50 or more pages. And maybe change the conflict toward the end so it wouldn't be so generic.
Speaking of... it wasn't a conflict I haven't read before. And while it might bother me in any other book, here it bothered me a lot. The author had taken so much time to develop a good relationship between the protagonists, and the conflict cheapened that. Not to mention, the amount of time it took for them to realize they weren't just "fuck buddies" was ridiculous.
Overall, a book that would've been better had it not been so occupied with saying the same thing over and over. I was so tired of it by the end. And it'll be a while before I pick up another book by the author.
The book started off great. It's about Jon and Brent. Jon is a recently divorced man with a ten-year-old son, who's still trying to adjust to being single after twenty years. Whereas Brent is a 29-year-old former NHL player who was severely injured in a car crash. He's still recovering from his injuries and coming to terms with the end of his career, and that he'll be in chronic pain for the rest of his life and will never gain the mobility that he had.
Both parts of the story were good, and they were done so well. We got to hear about both their struggles. I mean, a divorce after twenty years is bound to be a shock. And severe injuries like Brent's? I loved the care and attention the author devoted to the effects the injuries had on his life and his psyche. Both the characters were also very likable, and they had the sweetest relationship.
The problem arose about halfway through when it started to become more and more obvious how repetitive the book was getting. The characters understandably have doubts, and they think about them often. And a lot of the time, it's the same doubt that's come to haunt them again. We didn't need a long inner monologue reiterating the things we read just a couple of chapters ago. Instead of two pages of the same thing, you could've just alluded to the character's thoughts, that they were the same as before, in a single paragraph. Though really, the book was verbose in general, even when it wasn't repetitive.
You know what this book needed? An editor who could chop off 50 or more pages. And maybe change the conflict toward the end so it wouldn't be so generic.
Speaking of... it wasn't a conflict I haven't read before. And while it might bother me in any other book, here it bothered me a lot. The author had taken so much time to develop a good relationship between the protagonists, and the conflict cheapened that. Not to mention, the amount of time it took for them to realize they weren't just "fuck buddies" was ridiculous.
Overall, a book that would've been better had it not been so occupied with saying the same thing over and over. I was so tired of it by the end. And it'll be a while before I pick up another book by the author.