Reviewed by Stephen K
TITLE: Land On Me
AUTHOR: Matthew R. Corr
PUBLISHER: Quill Hawk Publishing
LENGTH: 343 pages
RELEASE DATE: August 26th 2021
BLURB:
Landon Griffin has everything going for him. He’s a high school senior on the brink of receiving a football scholarship, his dad is running for mayor of Madison, Texas, and his future with his girlfriend looks bright. But his simple life shatters when feelings spark for a guy he’s never met.
Giving the stranger the name Mystery Boy, Landon hesitates to step out of his comfort zone to solve the mystery. Living in a conservative town, he struggles to hide his new obsession while trying to figure out where he fits within the spectrum of sexuality. Can he dodge the constant questions from his friends and find answers before the escalating anxiety becomes too much to handle?
REVIEW:
Ever hear the song Mr. Tanner by Harry Chapin? It’s a song about a man who runs a dry cleaning business but who enjoys classical singing. Encouraged by his friends and neighbors, he arranges for a hall in NYC and performs – only to have his dreams shattered by a newspaper critic so badly that he never openly sings again, except, late at night in his basement when pressing clothes. 😭😭😭
So why do I bring this up? There’s always a fine line between be an honest and helpful critic and being “that guy from the Mr. Tanner song” I don’t want to be “that guy.”
This is Matt’s debut novel and it would be a mistake for him to stop now. He tells an interesting story with some very likable characters, but he does need to work on his storytelling. Perhaps he could start by explaining his title a bit more?
He also needs to write more about what he knows. There were so many “little glitches” that kept jolting the “movie in my head” to a stop. Examples? 1) A guy walking from one “small Texas town” to the next town over. In my mind when someone in Texas says “It’s just down the road a piece” that means about 50 miles. 2) A guy wearing his high-school football uniform home after a game rather than changing with the guys? 3) A school safety drill where they allow options? That’s just NOT how those things work. 4) Two high school football teams playing against each other twice in one regular season? Not at all common.
That said, the story of a clueless high school athlete coming to the realization that he might be gay is an evergreen theme that I’ll always be interested in. Landon is a likable enough protagonist for a repressed questioning teen jock. His coming out process resonated with truth despite the over-abundant incidents leading up to it. There were some great bits as well, the “vomitorium bit” was laugh out loud funny, the whole exploring Grindr bit was nice, even the scenes where Landon first meets Dan, and when Landon meets Stevie it’s great. There are the beginnings of a lot of great characters here. Stevie and Landon needed more page-time, ditto for background on Landon and Dan. I also wanted more face-time with Landon’s father. Chris and Dan’s stories needed to be include more as well.
It felt as if the author was not confident enough in his major story elements and kept adding more (unrelated) things in. For the most part the “additions” felt incomplete and actually ended up detracting from the main story-line.
There is a lot to like here, but only a mother would not see the flaws. As much as I wanted to like this one, it’s really in need of a bit of a rewrite to bring it up to snuff.
I’m willing to bet that even Mr. Tanner practiced a bit before going on stage and maybe even hired a voice coach.
Trigger Warnings: suicide, death of parent, parent with terminal illness, violence, homophobia, bullying, gun violence, domestic violence/abusive parents, drugs/alcohol, outing
RATING: 
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