Jake's Hand 1. Jake's Hand

Sam Wyer · January 16, 2018

I've just finished reading this (thanks for another otherwise entirely unproductive morning!) and I think you should too. The story is beautifully crafted, with a gentle pace that never quite slows down enough for you to get bored, just impatient to find out how things go next. And of course, how they go is totally worth finding out on your own, so I'm not going to spoil that here.

Spoiler

No, I said I wasn't going to spoil it here

@Headstall has already taken "mesmerising" and "captivating" (and frankly, I'd trust his choice of words more than my own), so I'll go with wonderful. The characters are richly formed and developed, and (for the most part anyway) entirely believable. I guess that's where the 'wonder' of wonderful really comes in.

Headstall · January 15, 2018

I read this a long time ago, but I've never forgotten it. Mesmerizing is a good way to describe this story. Or maybe captivating. Okay, both. I was both mesmerized and captivated. The characters come to life, right from the beginning. I highly recommend this one.

Talo Segura · March 1, 2021

This is one of those stories for which the plot is being gay, discovering you are gay, overcoming difficulties and forming a relationship. It is also a story about a missed opportunity, a choice which seperates our protagonists on their path through life.

It is well written, populated with wonderful descriptive narrative and astute observations around relationships, best friends, family. The story is a unique study of love between two men, a love that is handicapped by their individual histories, but which ultimately is a triumph for everyone.

My main criticism is that the story is peppered with unnecessary sex scenes, described in graphic detail, which add nothing to the theme, rather they transform the novel into something less than the story deserves. It is at times, led by this divergence, unrealistic. Alex, Robbie's fourteen year old son, we are told places his tent some distance apart so he can jerk off without being overheard.

This is my biggest regret about the story, even if there is no graphic sex for some seven or eight chapters into the novel, it then falls into that usual formula, describing their love making which has no real place being detailed so graphically and doing so rather destroys what could have been a great story.

The time spent on those scenes may have been better spent giving detail on Jake's experience in Vietnam. After all, this is the pivotal point of the story and is told only through Jake's recollection and subsequent explanation. It thus becomes a vehicle which is the obstacle they must overcome, but I don't believe it is given the place it deserves. Plunging the reader into that reality would have made for a better understanding and certainly have added more drama.

As it stands there are some long drawn out plot points, where the reader knows what is going on, even as our hero Robbie continuously appears clueless. This does tend to become a little frustrating. It is a well written story, with a great theme, which doesn't live up to its potential. I found myself skipping through the sex scenes and most of the final chapters.

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Jake's Hand 1. Jake's Hand

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