Amy Aislin, $3.99, ISBN 979-8215293867
Contemporary Romance, 2020 (Reissue)
Amy Aislin’s The Play of His Life was first published in 2017. According to the author, she had tidied up the grammar and stuff for this reissue—boy, can I relate to that!—and added an epilogue that was previously available only to subscribers of her newsletter or something.
The opening chapter serves up one aspect of gay romances, especially those written by women, that always leaves me scratching my head: from the moment Christian Dufresne shows up, he is in full Karen mode, complaining non-stop about everything and anything. He’s like the stereotype of the gay bottom that is ubiquitous in way too many gay comedies of the 1990s and early 2000s, and the women in the audience mistook camp for “This is totally how my imaginary gay BFF will be like!” material and write gay romances with such characters in the lead.
The author is aware of this. Christian is known by the folks around town as Crotchety Christian. Still, being self aware isn’t much when this crotchety creature is still running around being annoying as can be.
As stereotypes go, the complaining toss pot here will fall for a stereotypical straight-acting guy, and here that bloke is his ex, Riley Deschamps. Yes, that name radiates third-hand embarrassment, but I suppose the author just wants a cute name to go with an ex-NHL player that had to retire due to injuries.
Crotchety Crosswoggle here is back in town for a while, to visit his mother, and that’s how he bumps into Riley again.
Does it matter why they broke up the last time? After all, they are soon at it again. This leaves the issue of how to pad the rest of the story and, unfortunately for me, the author opts to do this by having the Crosswoggle complain, whine, moan, mope, and wheeze about everything.
I don’t know what this fellow’s issue is, but every small thing seems to trigger him into some kind of mountains-out-of-molehills ranting and scolding fit. The whole thing is just unpleasant to read, and Crosswoggle ends up coming off like someone without a single ounce of patience, tolerance, understanding, empathy, and kindness.
Toward the end, Crosswoggle whines that he’s emotionally drained and exhausted due to his constant self-inflicted mental hysteria, and I can only give him the side eye because I’ve experienced twice the emotionally draining and exhausting experience from having to follow this crotchety windbag. The story isn’t that long, but my god, this fellow seems to have whined into my ears for a week or so.
Anyway, this one is more of a plague on my reading habit, just like how Crosswoggle is more of a plague than a play in Riley’s life. People with low tolerance for a terminal Karen of a hero may want to steel their nerves a bit before attempting to read this one!
