Rainbow Reviews

BOOK BLURB:
Danny and Jeff have never had an easy relationship. Danny admits early on that he wants Jeff, maybe even loves him, but all Jeff wants is a normal life, at least as normal as a rock star can have. Over the years, the two of them will come together and drift apart, as Danny spirals deeper into depression over what he feels is an unrequited love. Jeff has his own reasons for pushing Danny away, but when he finally decides to take life by the horns and find Danny again, it might be too late. Can Jeff and Danny find a wayto put their past behind them, and build a future as bright as the prospects of their new band?

BOOK REVIEW:
I had mixed reactions to this novel, but overall I found it an absorbing read. Before this, I had not read anything by this author and I found myself captivated from the first page. The voice and the phrasing used were, at times, like a punch to the gut-in the best possible way. Danny's downward spiral was painted so vividly, it really had me by the throat. The scenes involving drug use were superb in their ability to make me feel exactly what the character was feeling. Blake also does angst very, very well.

The character descriptions and devices the author used to help me learn the characters couldn't have been stronger or more effective. Each and every character, most especially Danny, came alive for me right from the first page. This author did not shy from laying it all bare, peeling back the layers of the story in a way that, at the end of the day, gave a story that was real, no matter how rough or ugly it was at times.

I think my major problem with this story is that it read like contemporary fiction up until about page 170 and then the rest, almost 100 pages, read like a romance ~ and I never quite got the romance part. In romance, I think coming to like or love the characters is essential to the overall enjoyability of the story. I never really liked Danny as a romantic figure, and for the first two thirds of the book I loathed Jeff. In the last third of the novel, Jeff was like a completely different person, but as a reader I was never given any reasons or real evidence for why this change occurred.

Also, one of the major obstacles in the story and the cause for so much angst (Danny and Jeff can't be together because coming out would be disastrous in that time and in their careers) was dealt with almost as an afterthought. The resulting happy ending felt forced to me. This took away from the gritty realism and hard-hitting emotions that I loved throughout most of the novel.

Another problem I had, albeit a bit smaller one, was that I didn't think the author built the setting suitably. Other than a few superficial descriptions of clothes and hair, I found little to ground me in the 1970s and 1980s, in which the story was set. In fact, if it weren't for the year reminders at at the beginning of the chapters, I would have forgotten completely that this wasn't set in present day. That contributed to a feeling of disorientation I had every so often in the novel, as the time period was important to some recurrent themes (i.e., fear of consequences for publicly admitting homosexuality).

Overall, I would recommend this novel. Personally, I can't wait to see what this author produces next, because despite what I felt were obvious flaws in The Far Away Years, there were also moments of brilliance.

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