Rating: 3 star out of 5 stars
Thirty-eight year old Jonny Ordell is hopelessly in love with his friend Mark Dorsett. There’s just one small problem: Mark Dorsett is insane.
Not a charming, cute, surprisingly insightful kind of insane. The kind of mental illness that rips apart Jonny’s insides and turns otherwise good people into villains. It isn’t Mark’s fault. It’s not like he asked to be sick. At the same time Mark’s erratic behavior and his refusal to get help is destroying everything in his path, including Jonny.
Now Jonny must decide: does he stand by his man and hope loyalty and love are enough to make Mark realize the error of his ways? Or does he abandon Mark to his illness and save himself? Neither choice offers much hope of happiness. As their affair continues Jonny must confront the possibility that his love is not healing Mark, it may actually be making him worse.
There’s no damsel in distress here. The character may be tragic, I’ll give you that, but he’s a willing participant in his own destruction and there’s nothing you can do about that. That might the sanest thing said throughout this entire tragedy. It was train wreck from beginning to end. The writing wasn’t bad but it was the way I felt about the characters and plot. Isa K is a new author to me. The story itself was depressing, sad and just frustrating. I hope that if this was real for anyone, anywhere, that they would have the strength to walk away. The two guys, were bad for each other. Nobody can dispute that. Mark is sick, he’s alcoholic, had mental illness issues that I felt like the author should have told us which disease was involved. He might be the most unstable person I’ve ever read about. He’s selfish, rude, sexist, inappropriate, and sick. First and foremost enabling a sick person with any kind of addiction is wrong. I have no sympathy for Johnny, he put himself in the worst positions ever. I honestly felt like he forced Mark’s hand on the sexuality issue.
I want people to know I’m The Guy You Hate is not romance so don’t go in thinking it’s going to be, a person who is sick then magically gets help and falls in love. It’s destruction from page 1. I kept getting so frustrated because Johnny felt the need to validate Mark’s behavior to everyone. I hated it, Mark is a grown ass man who didn’t need anyone to stand up for him. It kept pissing me off because in the novel Johnny keeps making references to Mark being a good guy. When is Mark a good guy? I haven’t seen anything selfless he’s ever done for no one in the entire book. I’m trying to understand what the author wants us to realize while reading it. Honestly if Johnny was supposed to be the sane person in this story, how come no one pointed that out. He’s so pathetic in how he reacts to Mark. For me this element is a slap in the face the entire book involving other relationships.
The author explained that this is more based on the illness than the actual romance, and I’m okay with that. I’m just not happy with what was on the page. The author wrote well enough, and if that’s the case then it’s a 3 for writing, . I want to know Why to everything? The main character that was gay who wasn’t sick almost devoted his life to Mark in a worshipful sense. It was horrible, that the treatment of him. And no one in this book acknowledged that Mark had any type of mental illness. I guess I’m just upset that I read this, and I might be feeling a certain way for actual people that go through things like this in real life. It sucks. Honestly I wouldn’t recommend this book to anyone. If you can feel my anger at this book, then you’ll understand. Maybe I’ll go email the author and get some questions answered.
Cover Art by Wilde City Press.I don’t get the cover at all. It doesn’t match the tone of the book, as well as where we leave off after reading it.
Sales Links: Wilde City Press Buy It Here
Book Details:
ebook
Published March 25th 2015 by Wilde City Press
ISBN139781925313017
edition languageEnglish
Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words 