Misplaced Affection

By: Wade Kelly

Narrated by: Chris Patton

Length: 15 hrs and 6 mins

Publisher's Summary

Clichés are overrated, and loving the boy next door may not be as genuine as the love Flynn sacrifices along the way.

Knowing he's gay and acting on it were two separate notions to Flynn Brewer until he'd met Keith, his first boyfriend, in high school. Before then, being gay wasn't as real as the pain of living day-to-day. Flynn's fear of coming out to his religious best friend, Zach, in their conservative community destroyed his relationship with Keith, but Flynn rationalized his avoidance and bottled up the truth until it was regrettably too late.

Zachary Mitchell was the perfect son and role model as far as the outside world could tell. Active in his church while attending college, Zach had a personality that could sell anything, do anything, or be anything. Except, he couldn't sell the truth to himself. Just when he was ready to reveal his internal conflict to Flynn and expose the darkness lurking in his heart, and in his "perfect" family, Zach met a girl and got sucked deeper into his chasm of deception.

Caught in a living Newton's cradle of his own design, Flynn must choose between idealistic childhood fantasy and a tempestuous passion that could ignite the very air he breathes.

©2014 Wade Kelly (P)2015 Wade Kelly

Utter nonsense

I listened to the story to the bitter end. To me is is utter nonsense. In particular the characters of Flynn, Keith and Zac. They were not believable in any way shape or form. Flynn was so wishy washy, and just plain nonsensical. Keith was so over the top jealous and a major control freak. Zac was a shell character to take up space in the story. I can and would never recommend this audio book to anyone who wants a well thought out storyline. Ridiculous plot and shallow characters make this story unreadable. The only really believable part of the book was the overly religious and abusive parents of Zac. I'm sorry but garbage is too good a description for this book. I really wanted to like it but it kept snowballing into a ridiculous plot from the very beginning. It's a difficult listen at best, the main three characters grate on your last nerve very early on in the story and never stop.

Three stories, three points of view

Liked it. Was concerned that it would be the same story from three different points of view, but they run chronologically with very little overlap. Great story.

Long slog for minimal joy

There are 3 young men in this ponderous story, and at times I was heartily sick of all of them. It was challenging for me to understand the paralyzing fear about coming out to a conservative best friend in modern 2000s and with supportive family. The self loathing based on biblical teachings was tough to stomach poised against very descriptive sexual passages. Overall there’s just no joy in the story. I feel like I hiked for hours through brambles only to arrive at the scenic point to find heavy fog and nothing to see.

just can't

Writing this after listening for the second time. It doesn't get better. It's like he decided to write a book to include every stereotype and every overly dramatic event he could think of. it's all just...it's all just too much.

long complicated story

the time span of the story covers 4 or 5 years and the three main characters grow and have to go through a lot of issues. I remain glued listening to it throughout its entirety. the characters are flawed and things don't go perfectly but I did like the story overall.

Misplaced Opportunity

I am returning this book. I am returning this book and it’s killing me because I really wanted to like it more than I did.

What is so disappointing to me is that there is a really solid story structure here. The situation is compelling and the characters, when they are not being made to do stupid things in service to the plot, are good guys whom I wanted to spend more time getting to know.

The skeleton of the story was one that would be very appealing to me if the writing has been fully executed. Where to begin? The dialogue between the main characters was often unbelievable. These kids would often riff off a line of dialogue more common for a 30 year old than an 18 year old.

And then there was the obliviousness. One of the most common ways to power the narrative of a romantic story is to have the main characters misunderstand each other or otherwise be confused about what is going on. It is up to the author of the story to do that in such a way that the reader is not sitting there yelling at the characters because they are being unnaturally stupid.

Flynn is the main character and one third of the way into the story I wanted to club him with a baseball bat. Time and time again, he he makes choices that are not only silly, but also totally irrational for a boy his age. Before the story begins, half of Flynn’s family is killed in a car accident (this is not a spoiler). By the halfway point of the story I was beginning to think it would have been a better book had he been killed as well. Flynn was created as a smart, caring guy, but the narrative is made to move ahead by way of the unnaturally bad decisions the author forces upon him. I wanted to shout, “FREE FLYNN!!” What a buzz kill.

The author, Wade Kelly, actually has writing skills and in this book she demonstrates them. Unfortunately a wonderful passage of writing will be followed by something as clunky as anything I have ever read. So I guess what I’m saying: Another problem with this is it’s uneven. And that’s really frustrating because about the time you get into the groove of a nice passage of storytelling, something really stupid comes up and the whole experience becomes maddening.

As the story turns a corner moving to the last half of the book, the two other main characters Zac and Keith also have to make completely unbelievable choices in order to keep the narrative going in the way the author wanted to progress. It is obviously the case that since the author is female, she never saw life though the eyes of a teenage boy. I think the story would have been better had she been able to find a way to get inside the glorious, and often scary, mind of a male adolescent and let the story unfold in a bit more naturalistic way.

To me this is a problem with gay male romantic novels. Most of them are written by women for women and unfortunately all but a few I have read seem to have serious problems accessing the psyche of a male rocketing through their late teenage years. Alas, I keep hoping and I keep looking.

Excellent Storytelling

Good Narration, good performance and overall good book. I was surprised at the simplicity the author incorporated a religious undertow into the story without being pushy in any one particulars beliefs. It was first loves hardships, lifes meaning with its senseless tragedy's and the defining of the unique (and sometimes subtle) definitions of what love, friendship and family can be in different perspectives.

Keith drove me insane.

What made the experience of listening to Misplaced Affection the most enjoyable?

I enjoyed just about everything about this book.

Any additional comments?

I didn't like Keith's annoying jealousy. Everything else was fantastic hahah.