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A review by teenykins
Balanced and Tied by Mary Calmes
3.0
3.5 stars, rounding down.
To be honest I did entertained the idea of rounding up because of the truly amazing narration by Scott R. Smith, but my niggles wouldn't leave me to do it.
I really liked Eli and Celso, their friendship was beautiful to read about and generally I enjoyed seeing their lives. Seeing being the keyword here. Mary gives such extravagant (not only financially) lives to her characters that I never felt a part of them, just an outside observer. At least I did noted here that the overly done descriptions and brand name dropping for clothes, cars, jewellery etc was lessened. For me as a reader they never give more to the story, instead they lessen it because I don't know half of the things described, nor do I care to stop and search them. I'm already thrown from the story let's not make it worse.
The most significant thing though, that didn't quite work, was Eli and Celso going from friends to lovers in the turn of a page, with no build up whatsoever. Yes we had Celso's musings about being in love with Eli, we had Eli's separate musings about Celso that never delved deeper than when the change happened. He never questioned before if he was Bi or Demi, never looked closely if he felt more for him apart that one point when he talked to Ian, and after that they both jump in the "we are boyfriends and ILUs" train? 0_O
Anyways it was an enjoyable story and look at me I'm not even griping about how the "critics" at some point in the story almost built a Celso altar of adoration... oooops, I guess I griped!
To be honest I did entertained the idea of rounding up because of the truly amazing narration by Scott R. Smith, but my niggles wouldn't leave me to do it.
I really liked Eli and Celso, their friendship was beautiful to read about and generally I enjoyed seeing their lives. Seeing being the keyword here. Mary gives such extravagant (not only financially) lives to her characters that I never felt a part of them, just an outside observer. At least I did noted here that the overly done descriptions and brand name dropping for clothes, cars, jewellery etc was lessened. For me as a reader they never give more to the story, instead they lessen it because I don't know half of the things described, nor do I care to stop and search them. I'm already thrown from the story let's not make it worse.
The most significant thing though, that didn't quite work, was Eli and Celso going from friends to lovers in the turn of a page, with no build up whatsoever. Yes we had Celso's musings about being in love with Eli, we had Eli's separate musings about Celso that never delved deeper than when the change happened. He never questioned before if he was Bi or Demi, never looked closely if he felt more for him apart that one point when he talked to Ian, and after that they both jump in the "we are boyfriends and ILUs" train? 0_O
Anyways it was an enjoyable story and look at me I'm not even griping about how the "critics" at some point in the story almost built a Celso altar of adoration... oooops, I guess I griped!