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A review by rhodered
The Obstruction of Emma Goldsworthy by Sean Kennedy
Did not finish book.
What a disappointment. Although supposedly this is a book about Emma, she spends nearly as much time running around worrying about Micah’s romance as she does in her own. She’s doing emotional labor for the boys who never return the favor.
Although she jokes about the standard, overworn lesbian romance tropes (lesbian society is so small it’s incestuous, lesbians jump into relationships after a single date, etc) we don’t see anything other than that. The main obstruction to her romance is an ex everyone knows and she starts calling her date, her ‘girlfriend’ in about a nanosecond.
The girlfriend is barely fleshed out. We don’t learn enough about her to see her as a whole person, or even a quirky or interesting character. And I can’t picture her physically.
There’s one scene where the heroine feels lucky because she doesn’t have to worry as much as gay men do in locker rooms, because it must be harder to be surrounded by dicks than naked women (!). It summed up the book for me. The author, a gay man, can’t write women as full characters who have lives that don’t circle around men. He can’t see beyond stereotypes or put himself in a woman’s head.
That’s too bad. I don’t blame his gender - many woman authors write great male stories. Too bad the reverse couldn’t be true here.
Although she jokes about the standard, overworn lesbian romance tropes (lesbian society is so small it’s incestuous, lesbians jump into relationships after a single date, etc) we don’t see anything other than that. The main obstruction to her romance is an ex everyone knows and she starts calling her date, her ‘girlfriend’ in about a nanosecond.
The girlfriend is barely fleshed out. We don’t learn enough about her to see her as a whole person, or even a quirky or interesting character. And I can’t picture her physically.
There’s one scene where the heroine feels lucky because she doesn’t have to worry as much as gay men do in locker rooms, because it must be harder to be surrounded by dicks than naked women (!). It summed up the book for me. The author, a gay man, can’t write women as full characters who have lives that don’t circle around men. He can’t see beyond stereotypes or put himself in a woman’s head.
That’s too bad. I don’t blame his gender - many woman authors write great male stories. Too bad the reverse couldn’t be true here.