Elaine White's Life in Books

Read as part of – The Fall Trilogy
Author – Kate Pavelle
Star rating - ★☆☆☆☆
No. of Pages – 666
POV – 3rd person, dual POV
Would I read it again – No.
Genre – LGBT, Mystery, Suspense


** I WAS GIVEN THIS BOOK FOR MY READING PLEASURE **
Reviewed for Divine Magazine


DNF'D AT 16%


This is my first story by Kate Pavelle and, I'm sorry to say, it will be my last. I'll explain why in a minute. But, in warning, I was supposed to read and review this entire trilogy. Not going to happen. I got as far as 16%, which leaves another 21% of the first story alone to read, before I couldn't take any more.

Now, I'm not a person who DNF's books. I especially don't enjoy DNF'ing a book that I'm to review. However, there was just so much in this one that I couldn't stand any longer. I, quite honestly, don't have the time to waste reading things that make me want to throw away my kindle and never look at it again.

~

Book 1: Breakfall
Length: 0-37%

First off, I have to sat that I was bored almost from the get-go. I am not a martial arts enthusiast, but I can handle any backstory or character interest in a novel.

In fact, half my problem with the portion of the book I read was that there was a whole lot of action but nothing ever happened. I didn't read this in hopes of getting some kind of martial arts master class; I couldn't understand or visualise most of it and the stilted language they adopted when using martial arts made it feel like a bad Kung-Fu movie, where these characters tried to slip into a “character” whenever they undertook any kind of martial arts. For me, this was just a whole lot of disembodied fight scenes with a bare hint of flirting and nothing else. There was no serious character development or exploration and no real plot beyond the karate, until 13-16% when Sean got attacked.

At just 1%, I was already confused by three huge things:
1. Burrows-sensei was described as a “he” for about 6-8 pages, yet the only Burrows we'd ever been introduced to within the story was a “she”. There was no explanation that this was another person or the “she's” brother until well into Chapter 2, which caused a whole lot of confusion. You can't just insert someone with the tag Burrows-sensei and introduce a character called Casey Burrows and not expect the reason to imagine they're the same person, even with the different pronouns. Not when no other Burrows exists in our minds.
2. I didn't realise that I had to be a martial arts expert to understand this book. Because, quite honestly, it takes until about 13% before anything non-martial arts related happens in the story. And, until that point, I barely understood half of what happened.
3. The blurb. Good, God! That blurb. If there is one thing the author needs to learn it's NOT to give away the ENTIRE plot of the story in a blurb. Both the singular book blurb and the trilogy blurb give far too much away. For Breakfall, the blurb tells us in the first line that Sean is sexually assaulted, even though this doesn't happen until 13% into the story and is supposed to be a major surprise event. And the fact that I know there's cheating, idiocy and straight-to-gay or at least some serious self-denial going on for both main characters, but that they end up married just makes me supremely furious!

In terms of writing style, it was laborious to read. This was mostly due to the fact that there were either some continuous editing issues or some really lazy writing and the short scenes, some not even a page long, made it impossible to spend enough time with one character before moving on to the next. It was like they had to show every single scene from both POV or we wouldn't understand what the characters were thinking and feeling. But, if that had been shown instead of told to us through their POV then we'd have seen it anyway, no matter whose POV it was in. Instead, we got short sharp cuts of scenes that flitted back and forward far too fast and sometimes over hours within a page, that made it impossible to keep up and not feel dizzy with an overload of information within far too small a space of writing. The POV scenes aren't divided in any distinguishable way except a few block caps that don't help much. And the use of accents and abbreviations with words is tiresome and kind of stupid, since half the time they denote an accent that doesn't belong to the person. Example: Asbjorn is Danish but half the time he sounds more Scottish or Irish than anything else.

There was very limited character exploration, the first of which I only saw in Sean during his attack. There were flashbacks and memories used to try to connect us to him but they never made an impact. And, now I'm left wondering about that flashback he had about being pinned to a bed and unable to fight back, wondering if that was a previous attack or not. But, honestly, I don't care enough to read on and find out. I'm far too exhausted from trying to figure out these mismashed personalities.

The first line of the blurb comes at 13% and it's ruined by the fact that we know exactly what's going to happen from the blurb. There's no panic about whether he makes it out alive or whether he can handle it emotionally. Because we know. We're told in the blurb before we even begin the book.

When it comes to characters, Sean is the only one I could stand. He stuck by his beliefs, believed in himself and what he was doing; he only ever wanted to help people, even if that put him in danger or in trouble. Still, he was the biggest idiot on the planet for a whole hunk of the book that I read. He insisted point blank that he was straight, even when his only interest in Casey, the only girl we actually see him crushing on, is all because of how similar she is to her brother. Case in point:
“He loved falling for Casey almost as much as he loved falling for her older brother.”
“His baritone was mellifluous and hypnotic and, once again, Sean felt caught under the other man's spell. Sean focused on him, and it was as though the rest of the whole world fell away from them.”
“He felt a surge of warmth toward his teacher, a kind of warmth he never felt for the man's sister.”

Oblivious just doesn't cut it. But Asbjorn isn't any better. In fact the whole straight-to-gay theme is way overdone, because it's quite clear that both men are just simply too stupid to see that they're gay and just won't admit it.

For me, they don't have much chemistry. There are a few hints here and there, but the problem comes in the fact that they're “told” and not “shown” to us. The incident in the library when Sean fell asleep and a few other things were sweet and showed how unsuspecting the attraction was, but the stuff we were actually shown was too forced.

Again, the whole point of the chemistry is ruined by the fact that this book begins with a blurb that tells us these two men get married. A fact that I don't support or endorse having watched these two bungle their way through a not-really-there relationship for 16%. There is no way these two belong in a relationship together. Maybe as a short term thing, but not marriage.

But you know what plucks my last nerve the most? The cavalier way that the rape of the book is treated. Now, we're prepared for a sexual assault thanks to the blurb, but the way this is treated is downright disgusting to me. I'm not a victim of it myself, but I know enough to find this kind of treatment the straw that broke the camel's back.
1. Mrs Curry, from the dean's office, is dismissive of it being a rape just because he's a male and he probably brought it upon himself. I thought this was a counterpoint, to show how ignorant some people were, but it proves to be quite a common consideration.
2. A cop hands Sean a coffee, while he's waiting to give his statement and says: “it's my standard treatment for recalcitrant witnesses such as yourself”. Now, either the author didn't check that this was the right word or they just had a cop insult Sean to his face only to feel “oddly touched” by it. It took me two seconds to make sure that I knew what this word was, when the way it was used surprised me enough to question myself. But, yup, I was right. The cop just implied that Sean was uncooperative, even when he was the one to alert them to the crime, the one to give them added information about a person they were already on the lookout for and who had undergone a humiliating rape kit immediately before talking to them. HOW DOES THAT MAKE HIM UNCOOPERATIVE?
3. Ah, the way Asbjorn treats him. Well, that's a whole argument of it's own. Why the HELL would Sean accept being spooned and kissed and nuzzled after what he'd just been through? Most rape victims can't abide being touched at all, never being being fondled and perved over within hours of the attack.
4. No, flashbacks don't always “go away in time”. In fact, a rape victim whose attacker is still out there in the world may NEVER recover from flashbacks and often end up isolating themselves from the world, unable to leave their homes or be around groups of people for fear that their attacker is still there. That doesn't go away that easily.
5. And, no. Trauma doesn't just go away because someone talks about it. So when Asbjorn says “You know, with stuff like this, the more you talk about it, the faster you get it out of your system” is a LIE! And what the hell does he know about “stuff like this”? Some people NEVER forget what happened to them, but talking about it hours after having to recount it to the police, detectives, nurses and doctors is not a relief. It's another burden that often makes victims wonder if they will ever be more than what happened to them.
6. The one that made me stop – sex. WHY is Sean's solution to what happened to him to have SEX with Asbjorn? NO. NO. NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!!!!!!!!! A rape victim does not just turn around a few hours after the incident and have sex with someone they like, just because it will “take away the memory” of what happened to them. IT WILL MAKE IT WORSE! And no person should AGREE to it, because they're just compounding the problem by relating what they share with the victim to the attack, having them so closely linked, mentally and physically, that the victim often can't disassociate one from the other.

Also, I don't read reviews before I read a book. But, after writing my own review, I do go ahead and read the reviews of people who felt the same way I did, just to make sure I'm not the crazy one who seems to be the only one on the planet who can't stand this book. And I'm not. In fact, I read a review that exactly shared my sentiments. However, they read further than I did. And when they revealed that cheating (in a threesome between three STRAIGHT guys) happened, gutwrenching and physically putting Sean at risk, I was so relieved I didn't read on. I can't abide cheating in books, especially when this is described as a guy who can't even admit he's gay losing his virginity to two straight men. I mean WTF?!

Don't even get me started on a woman squirting breast milk into the face of a man, just because he told her not to do something. Just...don't.

~

OVERALL

This wasn't a book where characters were interested in or exploring a subject; this was an author's love letter to martial arts and it exhausted me to read it.

Adding on the way that the sexual assault was handled, the lack of interest in characters thanks to the complete absence of characterisation and I just couldn't do it. I couldn't spend any more time reading this book than I already have. I want that time back.