A Suitable Lover by plumblossom

A Suitable Lover by plumblossom
Length: 113,600

Overall
In this soap-opera of a romance, Skip has rules, mainly one rule: Don't fall in love. Not because he doesn't want to, but because when he does, he eventually messes something up. So he goes through life with his friend, one night stands, and scrapping by on his salary. But he's doing okay. He thinks.

Marcus is tired of dating psychotic men who make the world a drama centered around them. When he meets Skip--after all the hot, wonderful sex--he thinks Skip is just another one of that type. But coincidence, or fate, keeps bringing them together and the harder Skip pushes Marcus away while giving him desperate, needy looks, the more Marcus digs to find out about him.

This entire novel is the unfolding of how Skip and Marcus meet and the happenings that could bring them together if they are willing to allow it. Of course neither is willing to jump into the situation and while Skip is fighting falling in love, Marcus is curious while hearing nothing good--nothing bad, but nothing good--about Skip.

The characters are my favorite part of this work, because they come to life, they are extremely real, varied, and fallible, and they make the story happen. While I love the leads, Paris is possibly my favorite. He doesn't have a boyfriend, he has lovers and goes into every situation knowing what he's getting and what the other people are getting. He's not a player or a slut, he's just not the settle down type. But as flashy as he pretends to be with his friends, he's this sweet romantic at heart. Love him to death. Aside from him there are plenty of other characters to adore just for being themselves and insanely human.

The writing is good, although there are some editorial mistakes (especially name switches) which the author recognizes and would like to go through and heavily edit the story, but I'm not sure if/when that'll happen. Most of the mistakes are easy to figure out who should be saying/doing what and otherwise it's enjoyable to read.

The plot is very much a drama of misunderstandings and chance meetings and chance missings. Of course this is frustrating (it's meant to be), but it doesn't run on too long, although it does run on fairly long. Also, some of the events/reasons behind what people feel about each other might be pushing it. I think Skip's parents are the biggest case of this, but others may find some other points questionable, although I still don't think it's enough to ruin the story.

Recommended for people who like long, drawn out, "Get together already!" romances. Also there is plenty of self-hatred, humor, jokes I didn't get (over my head humor, not a bad thing), and drama.