KL Donn, $0.99, ISBN 978-1386413677
Contemporary Romance, 2017
I didn’t read the official synopsis of KL Donn’s Dear Gage too closely, as for some reason I assumed that this is an epistolary romance and I’m a sucker for epistolary stories ever since Helene Hanff’s 84, Charing Cross Road.
Well, I have only myself to blame because this is not only a conventional romance, it’s one initiated by an eight-year old brat.
Tomas Gregory Anderson writes a letter to our hero Gage Drapper, who is a soldier and definitely not a porn actor despite being saddled with that name.
To whom it may concern,
My name is Tommy Anderson, and I’m eight years old. I’m in third grade, and my teacher, Miss Gunner, is making the whole class write letters to soldiers.
I like riddles, do you?
This one always makes me laugh:
What currency do they use in space?
My mom thinks it’s funny, too. She has a nice laugh.
Gotta go do my homework now!
Your friend, Tommy
Yikes.
Anyway, Tommy hates his mom Paisley because his dad, Paisley’s ex, left them and he takes it out on her.
Naturally, Paisley cries and cries because what else is a romance heroine to do anyway without a man in her life.
Fortunately for these two, Gage replies to Tommy’s letter and the brat immediately decides that Gage is going to be his new daddy. I’m sure that he’s a perfectly adorable eight year old and not creepy at all.
Dear Paisley,
I know I’ve been talking back and forth with Tommy the past three months now, and he’s told me a lot about you. Actually, more than a lot. He admires the heck out of you.
Here’s the thing, he hasn’t mentioned you reading any of our letters, so I can only assume you haven’t? In which case, this is gonna be a shocker.
I’m almost positive he’s trying to hook us up.
He hasn’t outright said it, but he’s dropped enough hints that I can guess. Plus, the picture he sent me of you in a pretty little bikini, well, it gives a guy ideas. In his last couple letters, Tommy has hinted about me taking him fishing when my tour is over. We’ve talked a lot about his dad, and how he feels about the man.
It’s not my business or my place, I just…fuck. I don’t know. I thought you should know, I guess.
Yours, Gage
Okay, a boy sending pics of his mom in a bikini to some stranger… no, perfectly normal!
“Oh!” Tears stream down my face as I read Gage’s letter. I know about him, of course. Tommy talks about him all the time. In fact, since he’s begun writing to the man, his attitude has changed so much.
Why is Paisley weeping?
I initially assume she is weeping from sheer terror because clearly her son is either a lunatic or not so subtly pushing her into an OnlyFans career to, I don’t know, support his cocaine addiction or something, but no, she’s just touched, and I mean her heart, not her head.
She asks her perfectly well-adjusted brat what he is up to.
“You’re not married. And you don’t have someone to tell you how much you mean to them. Cassie’s dad tells her mom all the time. I want that for you.”
Good lord.
Here is Tommy persuading his mother to go meet the stranger.
“I want you to know, it’s your choice if you go with him. But if you don’t want to, I won’t make you.” Mom’s so strong. I know I’m young, and most people would say I don’t understand what the wobbling in her voice and the look in her eyes means, but I do.
Does the author even know any eight-year old in real life? Those kids don’t speak or think like this.
Oh god, to cap off the creepiness of this story, the author gives me three consecutive epilogues instead of just combining them all into a single chapter. Oh, those two have a new baby! I’m sure the perfectly normal Tommy won’t get jealous and bake the baby in the oven or something.
Seriously, Tommy is one of the most frightening, terrifying creatures I’ve come across in a while, and this is from a broad that watch horror films far too often for my own good. That brat will likely drill a hole to spy into Mommy’s bedroom and stab the new husband to death when he figures that his new daddy is not rogering his mommy enough. God knows what will happen when he enters puberty. Maybe he will decide that he’s the only one that can love Mommy like she deserves to be loved.
Hmm, had the author done such a story, I’d applaud it. At least then the brat channeling Damien Thorn visiting Bash Street would be understandable and even rational, as I then know that the kid is going to destroy the world.
Instead, this is just a showcase of the author having Tommy be 8 but act and speak like a creepy old man.
Still, this story gets an extra oogie for being so unintentional macabre and disturbing that I get a perverse kind of entertainment as a result from reading this train wreck.
Not that I am keen on repeating the experience, though. Close encounters with creepy kids are best experienced in minimal doses.
