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A review by dith_kusu
Connection Error by Annabeth Albert
5.0
4.5 stars. From my impression weeks after reading it, this was my favorite of the series. Just because this was different, a scenario I'd not really read before in M/M romance, and was really well-rounded. I found the characterizations very dimensional and believable, and really rooted for them individually as people aside from their romance. The previous couples appearing here were also nice.
I was not expecting the story to head in the direction it did early on in the second chapter, and the way the author presented Ryan and Josiah's initial airplane seat buddies meet-cute to introducing us readers and Josiah to Ryan's full person was good. Throughout the story, I found that I adjusted my own previously unknown expectations and biases of what active military people, double amputees, those with disabilities or having gone through a traumatic experience would be like, and it was both humbling and interesting.
At the same time, Ryan wasn't solely just defined as a Double Amputee with his condition being very recent and him having to adjust to his new reality. He was also a fully-fleshed out person within the story and his journey was just a part of who he was, and his situation when he met Josiah and they fell into their unexpected friendship and courtship. I felt for Ryan, this take-charge leader who feels responsible for the incident that led to his amputee status and his men being killed, and how he hadn't processed his feelings yet and just wanted to keep moving. He wanted to get up on his own (prosthetic) feet as quickly as possible to qualify for duty again, be a trainer and still have that Marine identity to define him and seek redemption. The environment around his military life and his rehab support system was interesting and provided another immersive world aside from Josiah's established-to-us gamer world too.
Josiah also was given more depth than being just the motormouth office gossip, young and rather excitable guy. I appreciated here that he didn't always know what the right thing was to say, and more than once stuck his foot in his mouth even when first meeting Ryan- goes to show that first impressions can be overcome! As the reader I'm more similar to him, and I felt for him in that he's a technical now-adult who still hasn't fully left the nest, and is still figuring out the whole adulting process. He's had a more easy-going life at it than Ryan, who is older with life experience and also just from going through WAR and having been a leader. But I liked here that Josiah is also in the process of stepping up as a leader at his own workplace, and his experiences of becoming a manager and dealing with people is one that I could semi-relate to.
Ultimately I also really liked that Josiah stepped up and knew what he was worth and what he deserved, that Ryan wasn't seeing him as his own person but had just wanted a project that he could fix-- and Josiah was strong and brave enough to say no to this, despite his feelings for Ryan. While Josiah is younger and less mature, he holds up to Ryan and is an equal partner, he's always seen Ryan as a full human being and romantic, sexual being where others (like Ryan's ex) would think he was now broken, and that's lovely. The juxtaposition of them being opposites, physically and also with their circle of friends being tough military and geeky gamers, was also a really fun dynamic, and it's sweet that they bond through their similar interests like gaming, and they can fit into each other's worlds.
Any issues with the storyline and writing style are similar to those of the previous books, where the story can kind of drift and there's passing passages of time, there can be narration of them just pining over each other very early on-- but here I found their relationship progression, their continued bromance to ambiguous romance over long-distance, the most realistic out of the bunch.
I was not expecting the story to head in the direction it did early on in the second chapter, and the way the author presented Ryan and Josiah's initial airplane seat buddies meet-cute to introducing us readers and Josiah to Ryan's full person was good. Throughout the story, I found that I adjusted my own previously unknown expectations and biases of what active military people, double amputees, those with disabilities or having gone through a traumatic experience would be like, and it was both humbling and interesting.
At the same time, Ryan wasn't solely just defined as a Double Amputee with his condition being very recent and him having to adjust to his new reality. He was also a fully-fleshed out person within the story and his journey was just a part of who he was, and his situation when he met Josiah and they fell into their unexpected friendship and courtship. I felt for Ryan, this take-charge leader who feels responsible for the incident that led to his amputee status and his men being killed, and how he hadn't processed his feelings yet and just wanted to keep moving. He wanted to get up on his own (prosthetic) feet as quickly as possible to qualify for duty again, be a trainer and still have that Marine identity to define him and seek redemption. The environment around his military life and his rehab support system was interesting and provided another immersive world aside from Josiah's established-to-us gamer world too.
Josiah also was given more depth than being just the motormouth office gossip, young and rather excitable guy. I appreciated here that he didn't always know what the right thing was to say, and more than once stuck his foot in his mouth even when first meeting Ryan- goes to show that first impressions can be overcome! As the reader I'm more similar to him, and I felt for him in that he's a technical now-adult who still hasn't fully left the nest, and is still figuring out the whole adulting process. He's had a more easy-going life at it than Ryan, who is older with life experience and also just from going through WAR and having been a leader. But I liked here that Josiah is also in the process of stepping up as a leader at his own workplace, and his experiences of becoming a manager and dealing with people is one that I could semi-relate to.
Ultimately I also really liked that Josiah stepped up and knew what he was worth and what he deserved, that Ryan wasn't seeing him as his own person but had just wanted a project that he could fix-- and Josiah was strong and brave enough to say no to this, despite his feelings for Ryan. While Josiah is younger and less mature, he holds up to Ryan and is an equal partner, he's always seen Ryan as a full human being and romantic, sexual being where others (like Ryan's ex) would think he was now broken, and that's lovely. The juxtaposition of them being opposites, physically and also with their circle of friends being tough military and geeky gamers, was also a really fun dynamic, and it's sweet that they bond through their similar interests like gaming, and they can fit into each other's worlds.
Any issues with the storyline and writing style are similar to those of the previous books, where the story can kind of drift and there's passing passages of time, there can be narration of them just pining over each other very early on-- but here I found their relationship progression, their continued bromance to ambiguous romance over long-distance, the most realistic out of the bunch.