Pamela

This book reads like a fictionalized version of one of those glossy pastel brochures called "Guide To The Two Dad Family" or in an edgier style "What it's like to be a co-Daddy". There really is no story, in the sense that a real story has characters with personalities, tastes, histories and interests and this is just a bare, simplistic account in which nothing is really going on except the very quotidian life of two dads and their baby. And there's a visit from a social services rep to get the intrusive, more conservative point of view from city/county bureaucracy Or maybe it's the neighbors that object to the two-dad lifestyle, I'm not sure, I didn't get that far.

It's unfortunate because this "story" has a lot of potential for a much more interesting take on the adventures of this family, and could have been a lot more fun to read. They could be out to dinner in an Ethiopian restaurant for example, or they could have family members to do things with, or they could have work situations - The explicit sex was completely unnecessary.

This book was not as advertised. I expected more explorations of the PTSD phenomenon and how it affected the protagonist's present life, rather than a long story of a knock-down, drag-out garden variety kidnapping, complete with archetypical male misogynist behavior. Way too much profanity - I don't mind the f-word now and then, when it's appropriate, but when every other word is an f-word or other hostile profanity, used as an adjective by the main character in her therapy sessions, it's way too much. The character's cookie-cutter variety of hostility against therapy and therapists was also very generic and tiresome.

Added in was the narrator's flat delivery and speed reading. She sounded as though someone was forcing her to read the words and she was just going through the motions. Disappointing, this novel could have been so much more.

Will you please stop featuring such appealing novels only available in abridged format? I am continually stumped as to why oh why anyone with a brain would even bother to read an abridged novel. Several times I have found on your site what promised to be a good read, but only available in the abridged version, and I have gone to the competition and rented the unabridged cassettes. Please stop the insanity!