Some mistakes are
worth making.
Reclusive comic book
artist Trip Spector spends his life doodling super-square, straitlaced
superheroes, hiding from his fans, and crushing on his unattainable boss until
he meets the dork of his dreams. Silas Goolsby is a rowdy FX makeup creator
with a loveless love life and a secret streak of geek who yearns for unlikely
rescues and a truly creative partnership.
Against their better
judgment, they fall victim to chemistry, and what starts as infatuation quickly
grows tender and terrifying. With Silas’s help, Trip gambles his heart and his
art on a rotten plan: sketching out Scratch, a “very graphic novel” that will
either make his name or wreck his career. But even a smash can't save their
world if Trip retreats into his mild-mannered rut, leaving Silas to grapple
with betrayal and emotions he can't escape.
What will it take for
this dynamic duo to discover that heroes never play it safe?
Damon Suade has done it for me again! Proving that romance
transcends stereotypes, Bad Idea has
completely charmed me. This book isn’t
just a gay romance - it is a book about the human needs of love and
acceptance. As a straight, married woman
from the mid-west, I might not be who Suade and his publishers would envision
as their target market, but I’m telling you, Suade’s books are now on my “automatic
buy” list.
Like Suade’s previous novel, Hot Head, the dialog in Bad Idea
is witty, and the prose quietly genius. I never use the highlight function on my
Kindle, but I had to break it out for this novel. Little pearls of wisdom
abound:
“Sometimes
an artistic career felt like climbing a glass mountain wearing nothing but
bacon fat.”
“S’important
to have old friends...They remember who you were before you made yourself up.”
“Never
make a permanent mistake to solve a temporary problem.”
These are characters I’ve never met, but somehow, always
wanted to know. Trip and Silas are both
men trying to find their place in the world in their own ways. On the surface, they couldn’t be more
different - Trip is quiet and anxiety-ridden; Silas has a charm that is larger
than life. The two bond over the geekdom
of comics. What is better than a sexy
nerd? TWO!!! But the relationship is not perfect. Both men stumble and fumble their way toward
each other, making plenty of mistakes along the way. But the issues between them are not trite and
contrived as I find in so many other books; rather Trip and Silas come across
as real people, as if they didn’t have an author orchestrating their actions
and peering over their shoulders. As an author myself, I know how incredibly
hard that is to do.
I can’t review this book without commenting on the erotic
scenes. The sex in this book is just the
right combination of realism and romance - hot, steamy and tender with just a touch
of comic relief mixed in for fun. While
I have no problem with M/M sex, there are readers out there who do. If you
happen to be one of these people, do everyone a favor and don’t read the
book. But for readers who are more open
to that sort of thing, you will find the eroticism heart-racing.
At 136,000 words, Bad
Idea is a fairly long novel, but the depth of the story keeps the plot
moving. Aside from the main romantic
plot, there are many other conflicts at work.
Trip battles endlessly between creating art for commercial purposes and
creating art that he loves. Complicating
matters is his boss and “Unboyfriend”, Cliff, who treats Trip like his personal
branded, cash-cow, and who cuts Trip off at the knees every time he strays from
his planned route. Artists of all types can relate to the battle of “selling
out” to make a living and doing what you love. I love reading about other
authors’ creative processes , so Trip creating his new graphic novel character Scratch was really fun. (And I’m thrilled to see on Damon Suade’s
website that Scratch will be coming to life in his own novella in 2014.)
I could go on and on about how much I loved this book, but this
review is getting long. Check it out for yourself. Bad Idea is actually a truly brilliant idea.
Overall, I give Bad
Idea...
Character development
- 5 bookmarks (Even the supporting characters are fabulous!)
Love story - 5
bookmarks
Geek references -
5 bookmarks
Sex scenes - 5
bookmarks (HAWT!!!!)
Dream cast (otherwise
known as who I pictured while reading) - Kellan Lutz (Silas), Max Irons (Trip),
Ryan Reynolds (Cliff), David Tennant (Kurt)
**** Bad Idea releases for sale
on October 22, 2013. ****
No comments:
Post a Comment