Reviewed by Carissa
TITLE: Overly Dramatic
SERIES: Treading the Boards
AUTHOR: Rebecca Cohen
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
LENGTH: 131 pages
BLURB:
Andy Marshall moves to London looking for a fresh start after breaking up with his long-term boyfriend. To stave off boredom from his day job as an accountant and to meet new people, Andy joins a local amateur dramatics society called the Sarky Players based in Greenwich, South London. Despite his best efforts to avoid it, Andy is cast as one of the leads in a truly dreadful play called Whoops, Vicar, There Goes My Trousers, written by a local playwright.
The play might be bad, but the Sarky Players are a friendly bunch. Andy quickly makes new friends and finds himself attracted to Phil Cormack, a local artist helping with the props. But life doesn’t run to a script, so Andy and Phil will have to work hard to improvise their own happy ending.
REVIEW:
Moving to Greenwich is a good thing. Sure, Andy no longer has a (cheating asshole bastard) boyfriend, or friends–and still has boring job as an accountant–but this is going to be great. Even when he gets roped into acting in what has to be the worst play ever written for the stage, by the husband of his work-mate, he is pretty upbeat. He never planned for the goat. Or the am-dram relationship dramatics. Or the fact he seems to fall for guys who are clearly not relationship material. All in all, this play is a big disaster just waiting to happen. But if the play must go on, the actors will just have to find a way to survive it!
Despite Andy’s constant griping about it, the play was actually one of my favorite parts of this book. It was so over-the-top with its innuendo and gags that I really couldn’t help but find myself bemusedly enchanted. This would actually be something I could see myself going to see. Which probably says a lot about my sense of humor.
The story itself wasn’t half-bad, either. I quiet liked all the am-dram players (well, except for the husband-stealing harpy who really needs to learn some self control). I’ve been around theater people almost my whole life (even spent 20 or so years sharing a bedroom with a self-proclaimed theater geek) so I know all about the shit that can go down behind (and sometimes in front) of the curtain. This book did a good job of showing that with out letting it take over the story. It gave the story a nice dash of oddness and dramatics when the MCs were not cooperating.
For all that I get that Andy is gun shy when it comes to Phil, I still had a hard time not judging him for how he was judging Phil. Andy just seem to give off this “I’m better than all you” vibe sometimes, and it kinda put me off. Yeah, Phil was giving out some mixed signals, but the way Andy reacted was a bit ridiculous. He kissed you and then said sorry, he didn’t knock-up your mother and then run off with your sister–you should probably get the hell over yourself. Phil has issues, and running away is probably not the answer to those issues, but neither was it right for Andy to treat it like a killing offense.
Also, every time Andy went all “O.M.G. this play is the worst thing in creation. However did I get myself in this most horrible of positions [insert fake swoon here]” I felt like slapping him. Dude needs to grow a sense of humor.
Still, when Andy wasn’t being stuck-up, he and Phil did make a nice couple. And since I have been in a very no-sex mood lately, the very short sex scenes near the end really worked for me. If you are looking for something with a lot of hanky-panky, this is not going to be your book, but it does have some great characters and a fun story.
RATING:
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