Self Preservation in Romance Readers Reading Challenges

Jul 02, 2009 Daisiemae rated it really liked it

Shelves: books-read-in-2009, e-book, male-male-romance-erotica, contemporary-romance, books-reviewed-in-2009

Self Preservation is the first Ethan Day novel I’ve read, and it won’t be my last. I was pleasantly surprised on how humorous the book was. I found myself laughing out loud a few times at some of the crazy things the characters in this novel go through.

The plot is similar to the movie “My Best Friends Wedding”, but it had its own uniqueness to it that I enjoyed. I want to point out that our hero Davis doesn’t even meet his future lover, Alex, until almost mid way through the book. The book mainl Self Preservation is the first Ethan Day novel I’ve read, and it won’t be my last. I was pleasantly surprised on how humorous the book was. I found myself laughing out loud a few times at some of the crazy things the characters in this novel go through.

The plot is similar to the movie “My Best Friends Wedding”, but it had its own uniqueness to it that I enjoyed. I want to point out that our hero Davis doesn’t even meet his future lover, Alex, until almost mid way through the book. The book mainly focused on Davis’ feelings, and his intentions to stop the wedding of his first love, Jack, and his determination of getting back together with him.

I will say this frustrated me some. I am a romantically driven reader. I want my heroes to meet early on, and I want to watch their relationship build. I didn’t get that with this book as much as I would have liked. I was also confused at times because, in the end, I’m not sure if Jack wasn’t the one for him. I think part of this reason is because I didn’t get enough of Davis and Alex together on a more emotional level. I felt this way because Davis was already strongly connected emotionally with Jack from the beginning of the book.

I know that Davis had to go through everything he did to be able to find a new love with Alex, but I still would have enjoyed reading more of them together. From the last chapter to the epilogue, there is a six month period where we aren’t able to see Alex and Davis fall in love. I missed that. Don’t get me wrong, it’s very apparent that Davis and Alex are attracted to one another. They have some hot sexual chemistry as well as an emotional spark between them that neither wants to really admit to themselves.

I just feel a tiny bit cheated because I felt like there was so much I missed in that six month period; from their first real date, to the first time they tell each other they love one another. I hate that I didn’t get to read about that.

Please don’t get me wrong. I really liked this book. It’s funny and quite character driven. I thoroughly enjoyed the variety of characters, and I came to like all of them. I am looking forward to reading more from Ethan Day. I’m hoping that the next book will focus more on the romance between the two heroes, but if it doesn’t, and the characters are as well written as the ones in this book is, I’ll probably be okay with that too.

I would almost consider Self Preservation more of a comedy with some hot sex scenes in it than a romance; although there is a happy ending at the end. I just wish I could have watched Davis and Alex’s journey getting there!

4 stars

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Sep 30, 2013 Tara rated it really liked it

Shelves: read-in-2013, m-m, romance-contemporary

This book made me ugly cry and my heart ache. I like reading Ethan Day books because they always make me feel happy. And while this one does that, the overwhelming emotion I feel is sad. It does remind me of My Best Friend's Wedding (which also made me ugly cry and when I saw it felt very personal) so those emotions also carried over as well.

I torn about the ending, because for most of the book I was hoping it would go a different way. (view spoiler) ...more

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