Bad Idea

By: Damon Suede

Narrated by: Charlie David

Reclusive comic book artist Trip Spector spends his life doodling super-square, straitlaced superheroes, hiding from his fans, and crushing on his unattainable boss until he meets the dork of his dreams. Silas Goolsby is a rowdy FX makeup creator with a loveless love life and a secret streak of geek who yearns for unlikely rescues and a truly creative partnership.

Against their better judgment, they fall victim to chemistry, and what starts as infatuation quickly grows tender and terrifying. With Silas’s help, Trip gambles his heart and his art on a rotten plan: sketching out Scratch, a "very graphic novel" that will either make his name or wreck his career. But even a smash can’t save their world if Trip retreats into his mild-mannered rut, leaving Silas to grapple with betrayal and emotions he can’t escape.

What will it take for this dynamic duo to discover that heroes never play it safe?

©2013 Damon Suede (P)2014 Dreamspinner Press

Good geeky love story

I was leery after reading some reviews decrying the length of this book and excess of geeky detail since I thought Hot Head had too much background detail. I thought this story, Bad Idea, had more balance in how the setting details were incorporated. The story moved at a consistently appropriate pace. Two geeky specialty artists figure out a way to share several passions and the results are good in and out of bed.

The narrator has good delivery too, except for the jaw dropping number of mispronunciations on top of some odd dialectical choices, like mixing Minnesota with NY for a good ol boy. If you play a drinking game for the odd words, use low alcohol content beverages and sip cautiously. Wouldn’t want you to poison your carroted (carotid) artery with gregarious (egregious) alcohol.

(Detail free assessment but potentially spoilerish)
There’s a big breakup scene where things are said that I didn’t think were recoverable. But thanks to the both Silas and Trip having good, kind, adult friends and allies (something that makes a book extra good for me), when they spent time apart and pining, they were not alone for long and got good advice and thought about where and why things went wrong. Normally I don’t like lovers to be “apart and pining” but they had a solid foundation of togetherness already and needed to think & learn without continuing to damage each other, so it actually worked here.

(Spoiler) In the big brouhaha, Trip runs back to his jerk boss. It turns out that when permanent change us imminent, our brains work overtime to make us go back to what we’re used to, have one last hit, even if the devil we know is clearly worse than the angel ahead. But having run back once with eyes finally open, I, as a reader, now believe Trip is over his user boss, but like a junkie, that last hit wiped out a lot more than one part of his life. That Trip got to fix this error in judgement was a Hanukah miracle in midsummer. /end spoilers

As to the steam, there are a couple hot m/m scenes, mostly frontloaded but I didn’t find it as steamy as Hot Head (which had really fabulous sex scenes). There is still “adult” material throughout due to the horny demon hero, but less detail on page. Where I thought some of the story in Hot Head was weak compared to the steam, Bad Idea had more robust story crafting. At least, I think so. I also appreciated the shout out to the Romance genre and some of the heavy hitters therein.

I recommend the story. The audio is recommended with caveats. Good voicing, mostly, but I coped by writing down many of the mispronunciations and odd dialectical choices. I got 25 before I ran out of post-it note space. (condescension as condensation, cojones as co-Jones instead of co-Ho-ness). At least it was fun. And I wouldn’t mind getting a copy of the graphic novel …

Yuck!

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

No, because sophomoric prose and tired cliches like this is why the world doesn't take gay literature seriously.

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

The creative process behind the comic book idea the characters are working on even though the romance between them is trite and boring. Go write that comic instead!

How could the performance have been better?

The narrator could pronounce words correctly...just, you know, for a start....

Could you see Bad Idea being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?

No names

Any additional comments?

I'm getting a refund...

this was like finding a hidden treasure

Would you consider the audio edition of Bad Idea to be better than the print version?

don't have the print, but loved the audio

What was one of the most memorable moments of Bad Idea?

anything going on between Trip and Silas

Which scene was your favorite?

the last 15 minutes I think

Any additional comments?

this is a hea feel good story, well done and fun to listen too! Charlie David is pretty easy to listen too specially when telling a very good story!

Good Idea, Bad Narration

The book was well written and thought out. The romance was nice and the sex was hot. My #1 complaint is the mis-pronunciations threw me out of the book so much that I lost sight of what was going on in the story. I myself mispronounced hors d’oeuvres for many years having read it many times before hearing it spoken aloud. Honest mistake, perhaps. Bad editing, certainly. A good editor would have caught these mistakes before it was published. Maybe they didn’t have the cajoles to make it right.

Fantastic

Brilliantly written. beautiful and sexy. my only complaint is a minor one with Charlie David. He does superbly well but every once in a while mispronounced a word and it can be a bit jarring. But overall a great book. I look forward to many more books by Damon Suede.