Elaine White's Life in Books

Book – Sebastian & Owen (Storming Love: Tsunami #3)
Author – Nic Starr
Star rating - ★★★☆☆
No. of Pages – 79

Cover – Simple, but nice.
POV – 3rd person, one character POV
Would I read it again – Maybe.

Genre – LGBT, Tsunami, Romance, Storm, Disaster, Depression


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


For me, there was something indefinable missing from the story. Perhaps it was because I didn't mesh well with Owen, the main character and the one providing his POV. It may also be that I don't get along with Owen because of his situation, which I'll explain in a minute.

Owen has a shoulder injury, described as happening during a fall and affecting his rotator cuff, though it isn't really elaborated on much. However, from the way it's explained in the story, it's actually portrayed incorrectly. The cause of a fall would be medically classed as an acute tear, which wouldn't result in some of the symptoms and issues that Owen deals with. These are actually related to a chronic tear, which is more likely a sports/over-use injury. This made it hard to judge whether he was supposed to be considered a special, rare case or if the more minor injury was only affecting him so severely because of a pre-existing depression or perhaps because of something else. It just made the whole thing a little harder to believe and feel sympathy for. (It took me two minutes to Google-fact-check this, even without already having medical knowledge that what I read wasn't accurate)

Perhaps due in part to this, but also because I myself have been through much worse, both physically and mentally, I found it difficult to relate to Owen and even feel sympathy for him. I understood the depression aspect and how it was easy for a person to become depressive due to a big change in their physical fitness and mental wellbeing.

That part wasn't the problem; it was the fact that Owen used it to stop him from living. He continually berated himself for what we were led to believe was a much more serious injury, with statements like : “Sebastian shouldn't have to miss out on all the things they'd done together just because Owen was useless. Broken.” It's a minor injury that can be repaired with surgery that they've talked about, but he hasn't done a damned thing to actually arrange. If he did the surgery – which is minimal risk – then he wouldn't have to miss out on these things.

Going through it like this, reminds me that Owen used his injury, depression and insomnia as an excuse. But it also feels like the author tried to make it more of an issue than it really was. For most of the story, we knew it was a shoulder injury, but it was constantly discussed as if it was a permanent disability, not something that could be easily and quickly fixed, with one surgery and a few months of physio.

Again, it's possible that my frustration with this is from knowing the medical side of it, but also because I've been through worse than one surgery and a few months of healing. But it really felt like a drama-inducing plot arc that failed to have an impact on me. And, quite honestly, it never stopped Owen from doing anything that the story required. He found it painful to lift shopping bags early in the story, but he could wade through waist-high water with his arms in the air, holding a bag of supplies and his boots? It's unrealistic, unless his pain and the physical limitations on his body (of which we're constantly reminded) is psychosomatic. Statements like “At least my legs still work” really didn't help make him any more sympathetic, especially to someone who would really love to have back the use of their legs.

Another issue was the age-gap. Now, for 44% of the story – from the way Owen kept rattling on about it – I assumed the age gap was more akin to about 10-15 years. However, at 44% we discover that it is six years. Which is barely an age gap at all. It certainly doesn't warrant the constant “I'm holding you back”, “You're better off without me”, “You need to be with someone your own age” complaining that Owen continues all throughout the story, until a massive blow out fight with Sebastian.

Sebastian, oddly enough, gets half the story presence that Owen gets, yet I feel closer to him than anyone else. He's fun, bubbly, happy and a bright spark in the story. It's just a shame that he doesn't get more time to show that. And, quite honestly, I didn't get to see any of the redeeming qualities that Sebastian claimed Owen had, that made him so perfect and wonderful. It would have been nice to see that, before the huge tsunami hit around the 50-60% mark. Because, going after Sebastian in the middle of the tsunami was actually the more realistic, normal, nicest thing Owen did in the whole story.

When it comes to the writing, there were a few issues, but I can't be sure whether that's because this is an ARC (unformatted, by the looks of it) and might also be unedited, however there were a few editing issues and some parts that were confusing, due to two characters each talking in one paragraph. I didn't really get the meaning of this → “even if it hadn't been a beautiful piece of masculine jewelley”. Not sure what that's supposed to mean, but it just speaks to the very odd turn of phrasing throughout the whole story. Like this → “What the fuck if Sebastian had been in this muck?”

There was no real sense of time, which got a little frustrating. With each chapter beginning a new scene/location/passage of time, it was difficult to keep track of how long the story actually took to happen. In one chapter, it took two pages to discover that it was a few days later not the next morning, which had been implied. It also got a little much with each chapter offering a new drama, but never following through to what happened next. Half the story was simply one chapter with one drama, then a new chapter a few days/weeks later with another drama, until the big tsunami event.

The tsunami itself was the highlight of the story, which sounds horrible to say. But the way it was detailed, the attention and the realism really helped pick this book up. Owen's character improved, but again Sebastian was the main driving force though he rarely got any page time. And I was seriously disappointed with the way it was “ended”. We didn't get to see Sebastian being rescued, which was a vitally important part of the whole story, to me. I was also really surprised that Owen thought of calling emergency services to report Sebastian missing, but never once called them to ask for medical assistance, advice or even an evac for a seriously wounded victim. Broken ribs and shortness of breath are not bedfellows; they can be a dangerous combination, but more attention was given to Owen's lingering injuries, than anything Sebastian had suffered during the tsunami. He could have died, but there was no mention of that, no rush for Owen to call for help or ease his breathing.

~

Overall, it was a story with huge potential that just fell short. I really didn't like Owen – he was whiny and selfish, made everything about himself and just wasn't great main character material. Sebastian was more of a tool in the story, than a real character. He impacted Owen's life without ever being given the credit or attention he deserved.

The medical aspects drove me up the wall. The fact that Owen's minor injury (though it can seem disastrous to those who suffer from it, at the time) was given more respect, more attention and more urgency, as well as a sense of total, impending doom and forever-disfigurement than Sebastian's truly critical injuries just about drove me insane.

The fade to black was fitting for the story and didn't hamper it at all. The romantic side was great, when Sebastian was in the picture. I just wish that it had been a little more even. The focus was too heavily in Owen's direction, granting more time/sense-of-doom to his injury than necessary and not giving the proper attention to the entire point of the story – the tsunami. I would have liked much more detail there, with the rescue, with the repercussions and the recovery. Not just “six months later”.

Disappointing.