Review: Muscle Bound by David Marlow

Muscle Bound

Author: David Marlow

Publisher: iUniverse

Series: N/A

Pages: 350

Genre: Fiction

Release Date: January 30, 2008

How Received: Publisher

Summary: Unlike so many of his gay buddies, Chase Hyde had no plans to settle down. A self-acknowledged “roamosexual,” his foremost objection was that having a partner would take him off the market. So even if love was never in the air, lust was always just around the corner.

Chase expected to continue his carefree lifestyle until, through a correspondence in cyberspace, he met Hunter Row, an up-and-coming Madison Avenue advertising executive and fellow bodybuilder who, unlike Chase, pined for a monogamous, long-term relationship.

Driven by their shared passion for muscle, the two men form a powerful connection and jump into an intense, long-distance love affair. Neither Chase nor Hunter can imagine the twists of fate that await in Muscle Bound, a passionate tale set against the turbulent and perpetual pursuit of sexual conquest.

My Thoughts:

I think I should start off by mentioning that this book has a lot of erotica. A lot. In between the back story would be wedged numerous sexual encounters between Chase and his “love” interests. Normally, I wouldn’t mind a few scenes here and there, but the thing with the sex scenes in this book was that they were blunt and vulgar. None of that “fading to darkness” stuff or toned down stuff (like "manhood", etc) – it takes you for the entire ride, very matter-of-factly. I had no idea you could say... certain words in so many different ways.

This book also deals with homosexuality. Chase, our MC, is a homosexual body builder and he enjoys hooking up with a lot of other muscular men. However, while the book has homosexuality in it, it doesn’t really deal with the emotions and uncertainty of homosexuality. The only time it did so was when one of Chase’s interests was questioning his sexuality – but Chase never dealt with it. He was certain of who he was and how he got there. Rather, the book focuses on the gay relationships revolving around the world of body building.

All of the characters were... interesting, to say the least. I couldn’t connect with most of them (most of them were obsessed with steroids and body building) on a basic level, but if you looked past their body building obsession, there are real emotions underneath. I enjoyed reading about Chase’s sexcapades and the diverse range of guys he chose to be involved with. Half of the time, the book almost felt like a drama or soap opera. (ex. Chase being involved, and loving, a married man who swore he was straight but loved Chase, also). There were so many issues and drama that could be applied to my own relationships, so I was able to connect with Chase through that outlet.

The book is divided into four different sections, named The Roamosexual Agenda, True Jock, Pumping Irony, and Muscle Bound. Each respective section deals with Chase in different areas of his life. The first is when he meets Hunter and starts a relationship with him. The second is with his sex partner turned close friend/brother, Kutchie. The third, and arguably largest section in the book, was with Christian, a married man who was Chase’s boyfriend. And the last is Chase and Hunter again. The way the book was cut up into sections was... I’ll leave it with the word “confusing”. Basically, the first book and the last book are about Chase’s relationship with Hunter. The second and third books are Chase’s backstory, giving an example of what or who shaped Chase to be the person he was today. While back stories are great, the third book was a huge chunk of the entire book. By the time we got back to Hunter and Chase in the fourth book, I had stopped being giddy about their romance and rather just felt sad about what happened between Chase and Christian.

But despite all that, the writing was superb. I loved the way David wrote. His prose wasn’t the best I’ve read, by far, but you could tell he had a handle on the English language and he used a lot of huge vocabulary that made my inner geek really happy. I wasn’t too crazy about the alternating POVs in the same chapter. Or, heck, I would have been fine with it if it had just been two central characters, but almost every supporting character had a few sentences for their own perspective.

Going beyond the erotica, homosexuality, and confusion, Muscle Bound is a book about love, really. Well, okay, not just about love, but rather about how many different events can shape you to be who you are. Chase’s love life was a predominant aspect in the entire book, making him hopeful, crushed, and even bitter. Deep down, he didn’t know how to love because he was always so guarded and refused to submit to the idea of love. But taking chances, opening yourself up to hurt, is what life is all about. At least, that’s what I got out of it before the fourth book. Once the fourth book rolled around, that message pretty much went out the window. To be honest, I’m a little pissed at the ending and how Chase handled Hunter and Christian. The ending is definitely not happy and ended quite abruptly.

Cover Musings: I don’t really like it at all. There are a lot of other muscle building images that could have been used – perhaps a body builder at Venice Beach, or at least in LA?

Memorable Quotes:

Okay, so, I normally do memorable quotes. However, when I went back through my notes for all the memorable quotes I wrote, they were all... er... Rated R. Or wouldn’t make sense out of context (like “the 51^st state”). So I decided to omit quotes for this review. Sorry guys! 

Overall Thoughts/Final Comments: I surprisingly had a lot of fun reading this book. It almost felt like a drama, with all of the troubles Chase had to suffer with his relationships. The writing was awesome, and I loved David’s use of vocabulary! I kind of wish we had a more conclusive ending, because I absolutely hated the ending. I kind of wanted Chase to have a happily ever after, not a sad ending.

Rating: 3/5

**This book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. (Thank you, Jason!)

Review: Jumpstart the World by Catherine Ryan Hyde

Jumpstart the World

Author: Catherine Ryan Hyde

Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers

Series: N/A

Pages: 192

Genre: Lgbt

Release Date: October 12, 2010

How Received: Author

Summary: Elle is a loner. She doesn’t need people. Which is a good thing, because she’s on her own: she had to move into her own apartment so her mother’s boyfriend won’t have to deal with her.

Then she meets Frank, the guy who lives next door. He’s older and has a girlfriend, but Elle can’t stop thinking about him. Frank isn’t like anyone Elle has ever met. He listens to her. He’s gentle. And Elle is falling for him, hard.

But Frank is different in a way that Elle was never prepared for: he’s transgender. And when Elle learns the truth, her world is turned upside down. Now she’ll have to search inside herself to find not only the true meaning of friendship but her own role in jumpstarting the world.

My Thoughts:

There is so much I want to say about this novel, but I don’t want to make this too long, so I’ll try to keep it as brief as I can.

Jumpstart the World is about acceptance and learning to adapt and to trust. A huge chunk of the book revolves around the way Elle reacts to and deals with finding out her neighbor, and crush, Frank is a transgender. She does a lot of thinking and reevaluating her beliefs, because that revelation shocks her so much and she has no idea how to handle it. The narrative is honest – as honest as a sixteen year old can get – and full of interesting and different perspectives on everyday issues.

Elle really surprised me. I started out disliking her (because she sounded too similar to me, but more harsh), but over time, I felt myself loving her for her personality. She starts out as a loner – as someone who pretends that being alone is okay and that she needs no one. In the end, she blossoms into this independent young woman who knows how to count on others and to let people in and wants to be directly involved in activism. Her transformation is visible – you can see she makes an effort to make friends and struggles with transforming the ideals she’s held from the beginning. She adapts to her situations as needed. She doesn’t always make the best decisions, but that’s what’s great about her: she’s sixteen and totally flawed.

One very prevalent aspect of this book I noticed was the similarity between Elle and her cat, Toto. It was almost as if Elle was the embodiment of Toto’s personality. Toto wasn’t beautiful, no one wanted him, and he shut everyone out/hid all the time. Elle could relate to this – she stated that she did not need people. Yet both Elle and Toto made amazing transformations – they just needed someone to love (Frank with Elle; Elle with Toto) them for them to flourish, thrive, and break out of their shells.

There was no romance in the book, per se, but Elle was always dealing with her feelings of love with Frank. Frank, of course, never returned those particular feelings – he had a girlfriend – but they shared a different kind of love, one that was comfortably settled between friendship and romance. And it worked that way – you could tell they both loved each other very much, just not in the way Elle would have liked, and it was very tender reading about their more-than-friends-but-not-lovers exchanges.

Cover Musings: Red is always a great color to attract someone’s attention. On a cover that only includes gray, black, and white, I give them props for being able to grab my attention. Now, people who haven’t read this won’t really understand why there’s a cat on the cover (or maybe you will? I’m not a cat owner; I wouldn’t know how cats behave!). But having read this and knowing it’s Toto’s personality to hide/shy away from others, this cover makes absolute sense and I’m glad the image of a cat was chosen instead of a model.

Memorable Quotes:

“I’m taking that cat. I want the black one. You can’t talk me out of it, so don’t even try.” I was already starting to understand him. To feel for him. Or maybe even to feel with him. He was scared. He was not cuddly. He was not beautiful. If I didn’t take him, he was as good as dead. He was about to be given the death penalty for not being beautiful. Someone had to come along and love him just the way he was. I was that someone. (pg. 3)

 It’s not like I didn’t appreciate his help. And it’s not like I was judging him for his life choices. It’s more like... If I could just have more time to swallow things. Or maybe have things hit me in smaller pieces. I felt like life was always pushing too much down my throat too fast.

It was giving me serious indigestion. (pg. 96)

 We would never treat anybody like shit if we knew they could be about to die. I mean, anyone we care about even a little. If we knew they could die, we would just freaking get over all the petty crap, because losing someone you love is more important than any of that. But, now, here’s the part that actually took up some of the hour: Anybody could be about to die. Every single person we care about is going to die. And we have no idea when.

So how can we afford to treat anybody like shit? Well, that’s the easy part. We can’t. But here’s the harder part: Since we all know for a fact that we’re all going to die, why don’t we all treat each other like we could lose each other at any minute? (pg. 124-125)

 I was hugging my cat.

We sat that way for a long time. Maybe an hour. It meant more to me than if I’d gotten a friendly cat. If a friendly cat had done this with me, that wouldn’t have been such a big thing. But this was Toto.

“Poor Toto,” I said. “See? That’s not so hard. You just have to take a deep breath and let somebody love you.” (pg. 181)

Overall Thoughts/Final Comments: Jumpstart the World is a novel that surprised me, really. I didn’t think I’d like it as much as I did – I had initial reservations because Elle seemed so close-minded, whereas I’m more open-minded, so I wasn’t sure how that would work well. It did, though. The pacing was great and the narrative was honest; I genuinely enjoyed experiencing Elle struggle with her ideals. The issues involved with sexuality were very interesting, but I thought they could be developed a bit more. I loved the similarities between Elle and her cat, Toto, and the idea that all you need is someone to love you for who you are.

Rating: 4/5

**This book was provided for review by the author in exchange for an honest review. Thank you Catherine! :)