2.5 stars — This one had a lot of potential, but in the end I’m wondering if I should have DNF’d it. This was an ARC that I hadn’t gotten to 2 years ago, so obviously I realize it’s not the final copy. As such, I’m fine ignoring the typos and assuming those got fixed. The problem is that there were fundamental story/narration problems as well, and I have no way of knowing if those got fixed (but IMO if they were in this copy, I bet they are in the final copy). What I mean by this is that there were multiple moments where it felt like pieces of the story were missing. Like, the dialogue would be going along, and then one character would say something that came out of nowhere and had nothing to do with what they were talking about…almost as though there was a missing line of dialogue in the middle. Or one of the characters would have an emotional outburst that came out of NOWHERE and did not fit in the narrative. This happened MULTIPLE times. It’s almost like the author forgot to write down certain parts. Maybe I’m crazy. If it’d only happened once, then I’d assume it was me. But it happened often enough to be frustrating.

If that had been my only problem with the story, I might have given it the benefit of the doubt. But the characters personalities also felt a bit inconsistent. Both Sky and Rock came off really immature. Which, they were supposed to, given what they’d each gone through…they were supposed to be emotionally young. And I get that. But they were immature in an annoying dickish way…particularly Rock. He behaved like a 13 year old sometimes. Maybe some of that was supposed to have something to do with his disability, but it just wasn’t clear. Honestly, in the end, while both characters had quite a few good things going for them, in the end neither one really won me over.

Rock is described as a gentle man in the blurb, but that’s not really who I got to know. I mean yeah, he had a big heart for certain things, and he could be sweet as well…but it was balanced by a selfish attitude. I felt for him, but not as much as I think I was supposed to.

Sky actually got to me more, I found the things we learned about him and his time in prison heartbreaking. He came across more gentle. But at times he was this meek, uncertain man, and at other times he would fly off the handle about being violent and dangerous. And I just…it didn’t feel like it worked within the same body. I needed to know why he reacted certain ways.

And holy homophobia. I mean, I get it. The story is playing into all of the stereotypical horrors of life as a gay man in the south. But it became too much. Especially Chandler’s actions. Especially if I was supposed to believe his turnaround. It wasn’t believable. Maybe it really is like that in small cowboy towns in Texas, but…I don’t know. It just didn’t work for me.

I did appreciate the added diversity of Rock’s disability following his accident. I thought learning about service dogs and what they can do added to the story. And I really felt for Rock and what he had to deal with as everyone tried to “help” him, even if he was projecting.

So yeah. *shrugs* See what I mean? I should have DNF’d. Ah well.