Beth Flynn "Nine Minutes"
This was a good book, I've enjoyed it.
I want to say a very special thank you to the author for NOT doing the following thing: making Grizz into a cheating asshole. If there is one thing I struggle with when reading biker books, it's that. I don't have a problem with multiple sexual partners, and I don't have a problem with promiscuity as such, what really gets me fuming in these kind of novels is the explaining, and approval of victimizing that some authors do. They are hellbent to tell you, that emotional and physical abuse of a person is to be accepted, because of the fact that a guy rides a bike.
I could stomach it more, if the females in question were allowed to have the choice of multiple partners too, but it's not the case. We usually have a caveman snarling “You're mine”, demanding absolute devotion and mindless surrender from the heroine, while he goes out and collects STD's like scout badges. People are different, and some women will stick to their men, no matter how abusive they are, and that's their right and their choice at the end, but call it as it is and don't try to romanticize abuse to me. It pisses me off. No matter how you word it, or try to portray it, it will NEVER be a sign of extraordinary intellectual, and emotional strength, rather then settling for less.
Rant over.
Now we come to the reason that this is a 3 star review. I couldn't connect emotionally with the characters, because of the style of writing. It was very precise with the explanations of the train of thought, but not the supporting emotions. The author chose to deal with situations in the same way you would eat a chocolate bar. Open the wrapper (intro), eat it (current situation), throw the wrapper away (done and discarded without a second glance), and life is so much more complicated then that.
Kit's adapting to the biker lifestyle was so cut and dry, it was almost robotic. Even if she didn't miss her parents, there was very little to indicate her actual feelings about the end of a life she knew. There wasn't a great thought of escape, there wasn't melancholy. Even if she didn't miss her parents there must have been 'something' that affected her like missing her friends, loss of routine, questions about where her life was going. She was so accepting of her new life with such nonchalance that it made it less believable.
The surgical precision of plot development and emotional distance is best seen with the rape scene. It happened, it lasted a long time, it was trauma of the worst kind. The author deemed it worthy of two paragraphs, concluding that the worst psychological effect was that Kit couldn't have sex for a while in the dark, and had to have her eyes open. Once it was done, the focus shifted on how Grizz dealt with the situation, not Kit herself. Once the people involved were dealt with, it was as it never happened at all. The scene done, you throw the wrapper away....
I truly liked the story, but the further I got into it, the less I cared, and that was solely down to the writing, so when the culmination happened I found myself feeling oddly flat- getting married, the execution, the childbirth everything was so matter of fact, it read like a legal document rather then a life story.
Shame really because this is one of the better biker stories out there.
