Reviewed by Chris
TITLE: Loud and Clear
AUTHOR: Aidan Wayne
PUBLISHER: Riptide Publishing
LENGTH: 85 pages
RELEASE DATE: May 23, 2016
BLURB:
Jaxon is getting by fine, severe dyslexia or not. Being a cab driver means he doesn’t need to read much, and the job has its perks. The pay isn’t bad, the people can be interesting, and having memorized the city streets keeps him from feeling too stupid.
When he picks up Caleb, a quiet fare in a nice suit, Jaxon doesn’t think anything of it. Then he ends up driving Caleb home the next week too, and the next, and the next. Eventually Caleb tries to communicate—by writing things down. Turns out that Caleb has such a bad stutter he spends most of his time mute.
If only Jaxon had an easier time reading what Caleb had to say. But he’s interested in trying, and Caleb seems interested back. They discover that, with a little bit of effort, it isn’t so hard to make themselves understood. Especially when what’s growing between them is definitely worth talking about.
REVIEW:
It seems like something that shouldn’t work. I mean, Jaxon can barely read, and Caleb has trouble speaking. That is not even factoring in the vast class differences between the two. And yet after weeks of Jaxon picking up Caleb for their weekly trip from bar to apartment, Jaxon really starts to like the silent man who rides in the back of his cab. When circumstances lead to Jaxon saving Caleb from a night of probably very bad decisions, things start to change though. For the better, Jaxon hopes. But with all their differences coming between them, and their language barrier making it difficult to bridge the gap, it might not be enough.
Despite the fact that these two characters have to struggle to find a way to communicate fluidly, I found their story to be extremely accessible to the reader. With Jaxon’s dyslexia and Caleb’s stutter, the dialogue in this story could have felt wooden and stilted, and yet it came to be one of the things I like most. The fact that the solution was no quick fix, and that it was more a combination of technology and just hard work, made it all the better. These two may not be a likely couple, but their attempts to navigate their relationship–and it’s many challenges–made this a very enjoyable story.
And while the vast differences in wealth and job-respectability certainly played a part in all this, I liked that it wasn’t the main focus of their struggle. Mostly because I’ve read like a billion stories focused on that and it was nice to see other factor be more heavily weighted.
The only problem I have is that the ending felt incredibly abrupt. I didn’t mind that we never got to actually see any of the sex in this relationship, but the way the story was building was kinda just prematurely cut off at the end there. I didn’t need to see them come, but some type of (thematic) climax and resolution would have been appreciated.
For an author I’ve not read before I must say I was really impressed. The characters were great and I loved how the difficulties between the two were not played down. I will definitely be checking out this author in the future.
RATING: 
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