Reviewed by Dan
TITLE: Acting Up
AUTHOR: John Inman
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
LENGTH: 190 Pages
RELEASE DATE: December 23, 2016
BLURB:
It’s not easy breaking into show biz. Especially when you aren’t exactly loaded with talent. But Malcolm Fox won’t let a little thing like that hold him back.
Actually, it isn’t the show-business part of his life that bothers him as much as the romantic part—or the lack thereof. At twenty-six, Malcolm has never been in love. He lives in San Diego with his roommate, Beth, another struggling actor, and each of them is just as unsuccessful as the other. While Malcolm toddles off to this audition and that, he ponders the lack of excitement in his life. The lack of purpose. The lack of a man.
Then Beth’s brother moves in.
Freshly imported from Missouri of all places, Cory Williams is a towering hunk of muscles and innocence, and Malcolm is gobsmacked by the sexiness of his new roomie from the start. When infatuation enters the picture, Malcolm knows he’s really in trouble. After all, Cory is straight!
At least, that’s the general consensus.
REVIEW:
Sometimes I hate being a reviewer. This author has a book on my top reads list for 2016 which is publishing in early January. He also had a book on my top reads list for 2015. I love his writing, as you will know if you’ve read my reviews of some his other books. Every time he has a new book…I greedily request it as soon as it hits the publisher’s list.
Well, this time maybe I shouldn’t have been so greedy. I love the author, but I honestly didn’t love this book. It started out rough for me from the very first page. I didn’t at all like the M/C, Malcolm, from the beginning and he slipped downhill from there. There was something about his ‘voice’ that kind of felt like Styrofoam on glass to me (the biggest irritation I can think of). When he turned an imaginary ninety degrees early in the book and starting speaking through the fourth wall to me…the reader…I didn’t like it. To be honest, I’m not a super fan of that in any book, it wasn’t just this one. I’m glad it stopped immediately this time, but it set the course for how I felt about the rest of the story.
I’m sorry to say that I personally never connected with this story or the characters. It just didn’t work for me for some reason, and if I’m honest I can’t really say why. There were some funny spots, and some spots that worked well, but they were overpowered by the parts that kind of left me tilting my head and looking at my Kindle with a perplexed look on my face. I’m sure others might have a totally different opinion, but I would have to call this one at Good/Average. If it was by someone else, I probably wouldn’t be as disappointed as I am. But because it is from this author, it left me a little flat.
RATING: 
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