Dr. Mike

Protagonist is incredibly verbose

Revisado: 06-24-23

You know the saying, "to make a long story, short"? Well, Junior Bender has never heard it before. The main character absolutely pukes exposition, often at the risk of losing my attention. It got to the point that I dreaded every time he went to a new location because about five-ten minutes would be lost just to describe the surroundings, almost an inventory. He's like a grandfather with good stories to tell but spreads it out because he wants to extend the visit. The protagonist and even minor characters go off on extended tangents and recount everything in tedious detail with vivid, purple prose. He even resorts to talking to imaginary ghosts when no one else is around. There are several parts that do not add much value to the story and ruins the pace.There are far too many characters who also talk a lot and often not carrying the story in any way. For the first time in my life, I have empathy for all of those people who have been on the receiving end of my long-winded tales and this will be the catalyst for me to wrap it up. I like the book but I would love it if they had cut off at least two hours of needless detail and filler.

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It's 6am and I'm still awake finishing this series

Revisado: 03-29-23

I liked this volume better than the Wolf Lake series, it was a lot less misogynistic. Since the agents are FBI profilers and travel, you get different people and locales because it defies rationality that one small county in upstate New York would have a new serial killer every month. However, I REALLY was not a fan of how the narrator voiced Logan Fox. It was a pseudo Mid-Atlantic accent that endeavored to evoke Hannibal Lechter or even Fraser Crane but it ended up falling short of even Sideshow Bob. The way the author wrote the character's dialogue and affect it did not fit the personality of a FBI agent turned serial killer. Since he was only a supporting character, it wasn't a deal breaker but I don't think I could endure it for the next Logan and Scarlett series.

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Difficult read but several steps above typical M/M

Revisado: 03-06-23

As one of the reviewers commented, this should have come with trigger warnings for SEVERAL rapes and very graphic violence, including some that involved children. This is not the typical formulaic M/M romance fluff but involves several deeply flawed characters, many with severe violent personality disorders. This volume has a lot more in common with These Violent Delights than a Josh Lanyon romantic thriller. It is written very well and performed by a talented voice actor. It held my attention and the 20+ hours passed very quickly and I found myself extending car trips just so that I could continue listening to this audiobook.

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Did not live up to expectations

Revisado: 03-29-21

As a behavioral scientist, I must take real exception with the psychiatrist character presented in this novel. He was beyond unprofessional, confrontational, adversarial, and completely inappropriate on so many levels. Who borrows a suit from a cabby? It would have been more presentable if he had worn whatever clothes he had on previously. It was extremely difficult listening to the two MC's first exchange, it would have completely disqualified him from working with Brendan as a client. Also, what psychiatrist would try to give an impromptu session on an airplane, irregardless of privacy issues? It is very obvious that the author does not have any background in psychology. You should write what you know. I also did not think that the narration added anything to this performance. There was not a l lot of variance between the characters' voices, there were times when he sounded like Beverley Leslie. This book had absolutely nothing to do with the previous book and its characters. It should have just been a standalone book, instead of trying to tie it into a series.

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Twiddle Dum, Twiddle Doom, and a Dog Called Calvin

Revisado: 03-06-21

This novel seemed like the in-vitro surrogate child of "Stranger by the Lake", Kevin Hearne's Iron Druid Chronicles, and the film " Overboard". I initially was very dubious of the plot. I thought that Dekker's decisions and subsequent cat and mouse games with Gadget stretched beyond the reasonable suspension of disbelief that you afford a work of fiction. Then I began to see it as the actions of a desperately lonely, spiritually broken, and psychologically damaged man who had essentially given up on life. Circumstances beyond his control and cruelty lead to him being homeless but his grief fueled his instability and it crippled him until he barely had enough motivation just to wake up everyday. This, I understood, unfortunately. His personal anguish and isolation contributed to him trying to construct a fantasy domestic tableau to replace what he lost. As a psychological thriller, I can follow the path laid out. The reader becomes an unwitting audience to a man trying to charm a cobra armed only with instructions he partially skimmed from a YouTube tutorial. You have a pretty good idea that no good can come from this and how this is going to end but you do not want to take your eyes off the action. It had a solid ending.

Other issues: The Valentine/Valentino story within a story was not needed, it interrupted the pace of the story and introduced yet another unneeded POV. The tension in the sex scenes could have been further developed or just implied, if you're not going to fully commit to the graphic description.

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esto le resultó útil a 2 personas

Needs some editing for the sake of the story

Revisado: 01-15-21

The book reminded me of Kevin Hearne's The Iron Druid Chronicles and The Tales of Pell. I really liked those books and this has a lot of promise. But at one point, the solid story slows down and it devolves into a saccharine, cutesy romcom. There is a whole section that does not move the story forward and it's unnecessary to show the intimacy forming between the two main characters, like the pet names. I liked the story a lot but it is diminishes the entire book when it tried to be something it isn't. In the next installment, I am looking forward to more adventure and the maturing of the relationship between Miles and Havoc.

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Flimsy premise that defies suspension of disbelief

Revisado: 11-26-20

SPOILERS & TRIGGER WARNINGS ABOUND
The wolf trope, amnesia trope, imprinting tropes, hurt and comfort trope, and vengeance tropes are all stretched to the point of being broken. The story mixes so many genres that it never achieves any cohesion. Despite the MC being werewolves, somehow they are completely powerless when they need it the most? Why make them werewolves if it does not move the story forward? How could a medical examiner not ascertain that the victim was dead before he was hit by the car? When Hayden is taken to the hospital, wouldn't they have done a blood test for evidence in a vehicular homicide case? Wouldn't they know that he had no alcohol in his system? Couldn't they tell that Hayden's injuries were from a blunt object and not a car accident? Why wouldn't they tell their packs about what happened? Again, the werewolf trope makes no sense when it is not actually used other than to retread the imprinting trope, like a regular relationship was not enough. What happened during the three years between the time Hayden was released from prison and the time they reunited? Why were they still scared to pursue the men when they were able to turn back into wolves? Couldn't Hayden defend himself once he was able to turn back into a wolf. The rape was completely unnecessary to create a hurt/comfort situation. Rape makes a poor plot device. That trauma was not needed for the development of the story and it just created an unexpected trigger that ruined anything that followed for me. The book ended without resolving what happened to the villians. For the violence, they inflicted, they should have been punished by the wolf packs, these were two Alphas that they attacked. There was no justification for the wolf storyline other than satisfying some Jacob Black slash yearnings. I was very disappointed by this story.

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esto le resultó útil a 5 personas

A rare misstep in an exemplary series

Revisado: 11-23-20

The mystery was sacrificed for melodrama. The Cecil and Chrissy storyline was completely unnecessary and unbelievable. She had to know that it was a sham and how did Cecil think Dave would react to this stupid decision? Then how neatly and suddenly it ended further eroded the plausibility of that storyline. The best mysteries have clues and presents suspects throughout the story and do not just introduce a character out of the blue at the end who vomits exposition to justify them being included at all. Joseph Hansen is better than this. This was lazy writing and would have resulted in Annie Wilkes forcing him to rewrite a lot of it. I thought you were good, Joseph but you're just an old dirty birdy.

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Narrator's reading is way too campy

Revisado: 10-22-20

I abhor people who do not take responsibility for their actions and this story brimmed with them. The protagonist is completely self-absorbed and entitled. Most of his problems arise because he does not think of the consequences of his actions and how they impact others. You are entitled to screw up your own life but you have no right to make short-sighted decisions where others pay the price for your mistakes. But it seems to run in the family because his sister is a selfish asshole, as well. The way she stuck Toby with her kid borders on neglect and as an attorney she should know better. Her and her husband needs to put their child first, not their jobs or their parents. If they had such time constraints, they should have hired a nanny or waited to have kids. Those are the major problems I had with the story and characters. I had a bigger issue with the narration. It was way too campy so it was hard to engage with the characters. The narrator's performance made the main character sound like a bobbleheaded, superficial twink, made his best friend sound like Harvey Fierstien, and most of the female characters sound like drag queens. For the sex scenes he used his "bedroom voice", it was not as titillating as he might have hoped.

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esto le resultó útil a 10 personas

Incredulous Like Us...

Revisado: 10-16-20

Like the other books in the series, this one requires a HUGE suspension of disbelief just to get through it. But this one might have the weakest and most far-fetched plot. Straight guys don't go date guys this quickly. From attraction to dating to coming out and meeting the parents in under a month. But the manufactured melodrama between the siblings is completely unreasonable in scope--it's an extremely weak backstory.

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esto le resultó útil a 3 personas