Parallel Lives: Unexpected Book 1, Ava Marce

I was interested in the idea of two men falling in love too quickly to be believed finding their way back to one another.  This story fit that brief in the most basic sense.  They fell in love quickly, deeply, and were never brave enough to be honest with one another.  When pressure and seemingly caring advice combined with fears and insecurities they broke apart only to spend the next five years unable to find anyone else to fill their hearts in the same way.

With Jax, he was young and at the start of his adult life after college.  There was so much potential for him and when he found Edward he was just as surprised as Edward.  Openly gay and happy with where his life is headed he's scared by how intensely he feels for the older man.

Edward has spent his life denying himself to everyone around him, but most ardently to himself.  A pair of stunning eyes has him questioning everything.  His fiance isn't about to let him break up with her peacefully though.  His coming out is less than ideal and he struggles with it but the affection he has with Jax gives him a sense of rightness, happiness, that eases him through his family drama.  What he least expects is for their burgeoning love to be shattered by the very man who held his heart.

I didn't mind Jax's side of things and I even understood the reason for the breakup.  But what I don't agree with is the idea that just because you accept that you're gay you all of a sudden need to screw every man you find attractive to find out what you were missing.  That flawed logic led to their separation as well as Edward's spiral after Jax's departure.  I felt that Jax's side of things was one-sided but ultimately understandable.

I had a much harder time with Edward's side.  For a chapter to start off with the shouts and erotic situation between him and Zane was jarring and disturbing for me.  And his attitude toward Zane the entire time they were semi-involved, including the America portion, was callous, cruel, and self-serving.  Completely unfair to Zane because Edward couldn't get his head out of his ass.

Overall the story was fine, I wasn't really invested or drawn in and felt the need to skim quite a lot.  There were an incredible number of editing issues that I hope were caught.  Really, all it would take would be one read-through to find most of them because the majority were word choices, grammar, and general awkward wording.  Also awkward is what the reader is made to feel during most of Edward's scenes after they see one another again.  Awkward in so many ways.  And then Jax's moment at work in the conference room makes him seem uncaring and shallow rather than empathetic and sympathetic to his new employees.  It was an unnecessary scene, in my opinion, and just made him seem like a not-so-awesome or understanding person.  So I'm not completely thrilled with the story but it wasn't horrible.

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