A review by bedeker
The Hearts of Men by Nickolas Butler

1.0

This is the first book by this author that I have read. I know that he is an Iowa Writer's Workshop grad and his first novel was well received so I had a level of expectation when starting this book. The author absolutely failed to meet that expectation on multiple levels. First of all his characters, particularly the males, are one-dimensional, and it feels as if he was too lazy to actually flesh them out and let the reader see what truly was in their "hearts", or what each man's code of ethics was, or whether any of his characters actually had a code of ethics. Next, some of the plot turns feel very contrived, and all too obvious and shallow. Would a man who is the leader of a scout camp really sit by idly as his friend takes his son to a strip club and encourages him to go into a back room for a one-on-one session with a stripper? And would that kid, who's as straight-laced as they come and puppy-dog in love with his high-school sweetheart, actually go forward with this? Would that scout leader even go the strip club, which is essentially in the backyard of the scout camp? Finally, where was the author's editor when it came time to their job? As another reviewer mentioned, maybe the editor was afraid to step on the toes of an author who has achieved some acclaim with a first novel. That's being generous. The author has one of the characters placed in the Special Forces, which is an army special ops group. Then, in a flashback, that character (Trevor) tells his girlfriend that he's joining the Marines (not the Army). And then he's in the Seals, a special ops group in the Navy! And when his girlfriend visits him, it's at Fort Bragg (an army base) and he also spent time at Fort Benning (another army base). Lazy writing, and lazy editing.