The Man I Love by Suanne Laqueur Find the Author: Website, Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads
Published by Cathedral Rock Press on June 16th 2014
Genres: Romance
Purchase links: Amazon, iTunes
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Source: NetGalley
“Like it or not, she made you the man you are. And you never got over her. You just left.”
The man is Erik “Fish” Fiskare, a student of technical theatre at a Philadelphia university. At twenty-two, he is the lover and soul mate of Daisy Bianco, a beautiful and talented ballerina. His best friend is William Kaeger, Daisy’s charismatic, free-spirited partner.
While deeply in love with Daisy and astonished by their physical passion, Erik is fascinated by Will’s bisexuality. But when Will embarks on a disastrous affair with a dancer named James Dow, it pushes Erik’s tolerance and trust to the limit. Rejection soon pushes James over the edge of sanity, taking Will and Daisy with him and leaving Erik in the ruins.
The young stagehand soon discovers that in the face of heartache, grief and betrayal, love is not always enough to make you stay. And sometimes, it’s the only thing that can bring you back.
Spanning fifteen years and following a man's thrilling emotional journey back to the truth of himself, Laqueur's debut novel explores the complexities of sexual passion, the dark side of devotion and the futility of running from one's past. The Man I Love is an epic tale of love and forgiveness that will linger long after the last page is turned.
We received this book/audiobook for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect our opinion of the book or the content of our review.
Book Review: 3 stars
Well, this is a very hard review to write for me. I honestly don’t have the right words to describe this book and so I will just stick to my own emotions here. At least parts of it.
First, it took me more than 25% to get into the book. I normally give a book the chance to get into it for approx.. 30%, if it isn’t for me until this point, it won’t ever be. So, this was a really close call. The build-up was really, really slow. I admit, that in hindsight I guess I understand why it was the way it was. But that doesn’t make it any better for me. The writing was also very hard to get into. I was constantly wondering if maybe I got the meaning of some sentences wrong. So I read a lot of stuff double or triple times. That paired with the slow build-up made it seem as if it took me forever to finish the book. Yes, the story picked up speed right around the 30-33%-mark. And I was very invested in “The man I love” from this point on out. Even the writing didn’t bother me as much anymore. The story from there was amazing, I was constantly choked up and biting my nails. But I never once had to cry. The emotional impact was there but at this point, I had checked out a bit already.
So, whereas I would say that this is a beautiful tale about friendship (just on a sidenote: I found the friendship between the male main character and his best friend more emotional than the romance in this story…), love, forgiveness, hitting rock bottom and standing up again, I have had three pet peeves tickled too much to just love this story completely. First, the slow build-up, then there was a huge time-gap. This story spans over 15 years and the main characters are separated for the majority of the time. And last but not least, there was the ending. It has a happy ending. But a rushed one and left very open to the imagination. Normally, I’d say that this doesn’t bother me all too much in books. But not in combination with the other two issues. There, it felt half-raw, not like an ending at all. I was so surprised by it, that I switched pages 5 times from the part the author deems the ending and the then following information about the author herself. No, just no.
Seen as I am clearly the minority with not loving this book and so many people did love it, I can honestly recommend everyone to try it for themselves. I guess it was a chain reaction of too many peeves of mine that made the book not fully my cuppa after all. After thinking long and hard about it, I decided to rate “The man I love” with 3 stars and will probably not read any other books by Susanne Laqueur.
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