Hello I'm Morey, and I'll be your Nostalgic Bookworm this evening. Today's book is so god awfully dull, it could put anybody in a 100 mile radius to sleep. The writing is dull, the characters are dull, the plot is non-existent, every fucking thing about it is dull! Why am I saying this? Let's read Fine as Frog Hair by Sean Michael.
First off is the cover. *sigh* Even the guy on the cover is bored with this story! Either that or his head was replaced with a cowboy hat. Anyway, The cover isn't very good. It's just a picture of a shirtless cowboy. There's nothing great about it. It doesn't tell a story. It's just a picture the editor found and put as the cover.
As I said, the characters are dull. There's the Latino cowboy; Trey and blond haired Yankee; Russ. Very original characters except for the fact that it's been done in just about any gay cowboy romance book in existence. They like each other because they're hot an- no, they're just hot. There's the family who you don't meet until near the end of the story. There's the best friend and owners of the farm who you don't see until the plot says so. You learn so much about the main characters like Russ prefers skinny asses and Trey likes salsa on everything. You also learn tha- oh wait, that's it. Seriously, the most important thing you learn about the characters are their life goals. That's about it.
Now moving on to the plot. There isn't one. If there is one, it's very sloppy. For instance, Russ' sister dies somewhere in the beginning of the book and there's all these tears and shit. The problem is the author killed her off in the beginning of the book when we don't know her and barely know the main characters. How the hell are we supposed to feel sad by that if we don't know them? Majority of the chapters practically have the same formula. Life is good, a problem arises, the two talk about it, they fuck, life is good. Reading the same thing over and over is boring.
Then the formation of a problem arises in the last 30 pages. The problem being Russ has cancer in one of his balls... Seriously. Before you think that can be good, the problem is resolved in 20 pages, Russ lives, and they're back to fucking. Honestly, It sounded more like the author wanted to write fluff and the editor told him to put a plot in there. It's just randomly put in, out of place, and unbelievable.
One might think this could be a PWP. The problem is the whole book is boring and never hot. There's a sex scene in nearly every single chapter. None of which has gotten me (someone who willingly reads PWP and homo-erotica) hot. I spend most of the time focused on the awkward dialogue and sleeping rather than focusing on the sex.
I want to get back to the cancer bullshit. I did a little bit of research on testicular cancer. Just about everything said in the book is what is said on the websites. We're guessing that's exactly what the author did. “Ah great. My editor is making me write a plot. What am I supposed to do? Wait! All great books have cancer. Let's research cancers! Wait! I don't want him to die. Hmm... Testicular cancers! Great! Let's go to Wikipedia and read about it. Yes! I have found a plot where twu lurve stays together!” Just writing a formula of what you read isn't interesting. It's boring.
Also, How the hell was Russ able to get the surgery done so quickly? I'm not experienced in surgery. My first surgery is coming up in a couple of weeks(more like tomorrow). Anyway, to prepare for my own surgery, I had to wait for nearly three months for insurance to approve it. When we learned insurance approved it, the soonest to do the surgery was late July. Then when we called back to make an appointment (sometime before my birthday), The soonest was the middle of August. Even then, just about everyone in my family has had surgery. The ones I do remember took a few weeks to actually do the surgery. Russ is able to get the surgery done in a few days. Really?
Next up is the money problem for the surgery. First they're worried 'cause they don't have enough money for the surgery and therapy. Then they're given a very limited time to pay up. First question. Why doesn't anyone have health insurance? The owners of the ranch are rich. One would think they could afford to give their employees health insurance. Especially when they work on the ranch. Y'know, where accidents happen and people can get severely injured. The second thing: Why are they given a limited amount of time to pay the hospital a large amount of money? Again, I'm no expert on this stuff, but if it's something like surgery, you can get a ton of annoying phone calls, but you don't have to pay immediately. On the other hand, why don't they fucking get some health insurance?! It's not bad or evil. If you're doing something dangerous or have some disease that can be costly, it can be good to have health insurance.
Okay next thing. Well, more of next question. Do these people eat? Every chapter there's talk of food. They cook food, set it out on the table, and one of them take a few bites. Then they start talking and immediately do something (mainly sex) after the few bites. You never see them finish a meal and rarely ever see them begin a meal. They're cooking dinner, then it's either blackout time or distraction time. It has lead me to believe that they're really aliens from outer space who eat by having sex. The cooking of food is just a distraction for the suspicious humans.
Finally let's get on to the writing. The grammar is bad. The writing is dull and repetitive. The dialogue is awkward. First, the dialogue. They're either talking about food or just talking for no real reason. Then there's the talking while having sex. It's just so awkward talking about what happened today while having sex. Seriously. Instead of, say, dirty talking, they talk about the day and the future when they're fucking each other. It just diminishes the feeling of lust and love. Instead, it just acts like an everyday occurrence, like walking. *humps each other* “What did you do today?” “I went shopping for food, fed the cows, walked the horses and cleaned the stalls. What did you do?” “I mended the fence, fed the goats, and rode my horse. You wanna go to the movies tomorrow?” “Sure.” *orgasms* Yeah. Very romantic.
As I said, the writing is repetitive. Same with the story telling. It's the same formula every chapter. There's a problem and they talk about the problem. They always have sex after the problem. They always talk about food. Always the same thing over and over again. Because it's repetitive, it just gets boring. Hell, it's boring enough for one to fall asleep reading it.
Finally the grammar is bad. The main problem is the excessive amounts of commas and 'and's. Grade school grammar: Try to use 'and' once in a sentence. If there's a list, replace the 'and's with commas. I'm not sure, but the writing just rubs me the wrong way.
One last thing about the book. If the title is a phrase used in the book, don't use that phrase over and over in the book. It shouldn't exceed three times in such a sort story, especially with such a stupid saying as 'Fine as Frog Hair'. If you use that phrase over 6 or 7 times in 40 pages, be aware your readers will rip out their eyeballs. I should know. I now have glass eyeballs after reading the book.
Well, that's Fine as Frog Hair. How did it hold up? Extremely boring. How boring? I'll let the Nostalgia Critic's dream sequence tell you. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to dream about good books.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ2j8yxu-rc
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