Reviewed by Carissa

TITLE:  The Home for Wayward Ladies

AUTHOR:  Jeremy Scott Blaustein

PUBLISHER:  Dress Circle Publishing

LENGTH:  250 pages

BLURB:  

Fresh out of Mackinaw Conservatory’s School of Theater, Eli, Hunter, and Nick have relocated to Manhattan’s Upper-Upper West Side bound by an oath that friendship shall conquer all. Amid bitchy brunches and failed one-night stands, these friends- as promising as they are promiscuous are on a quest to have their voices heard over the roar of city.

When they get a chance to work in summer stock, this “family” is forced to find out the hard way what it takes to become the ultimate anything: a somebody.

REVIEW:  

Eli, Hunter, and Nick had their eyes on the stars when they sail off to Manhattan after graduation.  They were going to take Broadway by storm.  They were going to be gods.  What they ended up being were ushers, pushers of drop-dead-awful-show tickets, and the hired help to just about every job that will pay enough to cover the rent and the vast amounts of alcohol it takes to drown one’s dreams.  There seems to be a break in the clouds coming their way, though, brought in by one Danny Olsen.  But they might just find that they are going to need a lot more than silver-linings to make this new chance shine.  Especially when they start to see the cracks in their oath-bound friendship.

To be honest, this book suffered from a severe case of overselling.  Because when a halfway decent story, with interesting ideas, comes served to you wrapped in a wrapper proclaiming it The Most Hilarious Thing Ever, you kinda expect it to be funny.  And I think I maybe laughed once.  To be fair, the fight at the theater with the crazy family was chuckle worthy, but a few chuckles does not a comedy make.  And you know this would have been fine…if the sole reason I choose to review this book hadn’t been the fact it was billed as a comedy.  A comedy with some deep issues going on in it, but a comedy nonetheless.  Maybe it is just that my sense of funny, and the author’s sense of funny don’t match up, but I am generally a very tickle-worthy reader.

So what does this book have going for it?  Well I will say that there were some great situations, and some really interesting side characters.  Robin, with his flirty old-pervy ways, was great.  So was Mandy.  And the whole premise of being virtually strong-armed by a shady dude to put on a play, so that his wife can star in it, was probably my favorite part of the story.  It is just too bad that it took so long to get to this point in the story.

I think I just had a problem connecting with any of the MCs.  Nicky is an arrogant, self-absorbed, has-been in training.  Hunter never gets enough page time to really sell his issues.  And Eli…I spent half the book wanting to slap him back to his senses, and the other half trying to figure out why he would want to hang out with these idiots.  Eli was definitely my favorite, if I had to choose, but my god, he needs to shit or get off the damn Hunter-pot.  I know you can’t help falling in love with assholes, sometimes, but you probably should learn how to walk away when said assholes give you nothing but shit.

I liked how the flashbacks were worked into this story, and how they set up each of our three MCs.  While I am not normally fan of them in general, they did a great job in helping me differentiate the guys before we got so far into the story that I was perpetually confused.  But as the story went along, I found the writing striving to be…I don’t know…deeper than the story could support.  These guys were too shallow for me to believe two-thirds of the shit they were throwing out in conversations.  The dialogue started to sound too grandiose to be believable.  The characters started to become caricatures.

When it came down to it, by the time the curtain came to a rather stilted close, I just wanted them to grow up.  To maybe ship ‘em off to opposite sides of the country in the vain hope that time away from the other Ladies would allow them to become real boys.  Not because they needed to change who they were, but because they need to get the hell away from the codependence that was killing everything that was interesting about them.  Together they were like puppets on the stage, going thru the motions.  I just wanted to Blue-Fairy their asses, snap the cords, and watch them become free of the toxic relationships that didn’t seem to build them up, so much as plaster over the cracks of a condemned building.

I like taking chances, and picking up books by authors I have never heard of, because sometimes you can be floored and find something and someone you will follow for life.  And sometimes is just doesn’t work out.  Be it me and the book not clicking, or just a difference of opinion, we were not a good match.  I tried, but these boys are never going to be a love match for me.

RATING:  

BUY LINKS:

Dream Circle

Amazon