BR Josy, Simone and Christelle

[Josy]

Christelle wrote: "LOL : it's a very analytical metrics. Anne suggested to use the count of dicks and cocks mentioned to assess the steam level ;-)"

LMAO!! Great idea but is it still steamy if dicks and cocks are just flopping around??
Ohhh, just ignore me, lol! I have pictures in my head right now that don't need to be shared, lol!

[Christelle]

Josy wrote: "Christelle wrote: "LOL : it's a very analytical metrics. Anne suggested to use the count of dicks and cocks mentioned to assess the steam level ;-)"

LMAO!! Great idea but is it still steamy if dic..."

That would make for...surprising decoration, but nah...I'm greedy : I want the body and mind as well :-)

[Simone - on indefinite hiatus -]

Sorry ladies, but it's getting late and I can't wait any longer for Karen's rant. ;-)

Sleep well and sweet dreams, Josy and Christelle, and everyone who might pop in here. :)
Karen, enjoy your packing and the rest of your day. :)

Big hugs to all of you! <3

[Josy]

LOL!! I'm sure she will let us know when she has the time :)

I'm actually writing my review right now. I need to write it down before it's all forgotten, lol!

Sleep well, my lovely ladies, and sweet dreams!!
Karen, I hope your packing goes well and that you are feeling better today!!

Thank you all for reading this with me!! It was fun as always and I enjoyed talking about the book with you!!
Also, thank you to our great stalkers who kept us company :)
~BIG hugs~

[Karen]

Hi I'm sorry, I started my rant and then hubby hauled me off to pack but I will have it posted so you all can read it over your morning coffee...sorry!!! *Hugs and sweet dreams to you all, lovely ladies*. I'm off to finish a couple of things and then hopefully I can rant uninterrupted!

[Christelle]

big hugs as well :-)

[Ariana (mostly offline)]

Simone wrote: "Ariana wrote: "Simone wrote: "And done! Hallelujah! God, that ch... *biting her tongue* sappiness... I'm really not sure if I want to read another book by this author. :("

Yeap feeling the same he..."

Well, I gave it 3,5 stars. But at the moment I really don't want to go through another book by this author.
As I said I think I finally figured out what bothers me about his writing: It is very factual - meaning that often there is a lot of showing and little emotional depth. Things like "And that made him sad." Full stop end of story. No description of what sad feels like.
This is also expressed in his sentence structure. (I am probably making all this up btw, LOL). There was one sex scene which felt like a car manual (Admittedly this is probably a bit exaggerated, but just trying to make clear what I mean)

And very often when feelings ARE expressed it sounds cheesy (to me) I just can't see a guy saying things like. "Will you do that for me, Colin. Will you have me?" This reminds me of Mills and Boon novels.
And all the ILYs. Too much. Too sweet.

I also did have a problem with the HIV situation. Strangely enough I am teaching that at school just now and I am making an effort to tell the kids that they should use condoms .. Here it was almost like *ahh you are HIV positive - don't worry, it's no big deal. Take a little pill a day and you'll be fine. I'll take Prep and we will all be happy bunnies - and they are! Unprotected sex ... here they go!

I am sure Robert Winter will know better than me if this is ok, but I can't help it - this makes me feel VERY uneasy.

Ok rant over (not talking about Hernan turning into a first class teacher overnight .... NOT realistic!) xxx

[Ariana (mostly offline)]

Christelle wrote: "Simone wrote: "Josy wrote: "Great thoughts, Christelle!
I loved the topic and I feel that stories like this need to be heard so this was a win for me! I just feel like it should have been executed ..."

Yes exactly. It was such a great topic! And so worthy...

[Ariana (mostly offline)]

Josy wrote: "Great thoughts, Christelle!
I loved the topic and I feel that stories like this need to be heard so this was a win for me! I just feel like it should have been executed differently. I can't even sa..."

Interesting thought there! :)

[Ariana (mostly offline)]

Karen wrote: "Hi I'm sorry, I started my rant and then hubby hauled me off to pack but I will have it posted so you all can read it over your morning coffee...sorry!!! *Hugs and sweet dreams to you all, lovely l..."

Looking forward to your rant whenever it comes! ;)

[Josy]

Karen wrote: "Hi I'm sorry, I started my rant and then hubby hauled me off to pack but I will have it posted so you all can read it over your morning coffee...sorry!!! *Hugs and sweet dreams to you all, lovely l..."

Don't worry about it! We will be here when you have time to rant :)

[Josy]

Ariana wrote: "Simone wrote: "Ariana wrote: "Simone wrote: "And done! Hallelujah! God, that ch... *biting her tongue* sappiness... I'm really not sure if I want to read another book by this author. :("

Yeap feel..."

Great thoughts, Ariana!! I will read your review tomorrow!
I don't know enough or pay attention enough to writing style and sentence structure. I just know if I like something or not. But what you are saying makes sense to me and could easily be the reason why he probably will never be one of my favorite authors.

Also, I left the HIV situation mostly unmentioned in my review. I felt uneasy (and yes, I'm still pissed off!!) as well but I have to admit that I don't know nearly enough to pass judgment on this part of the story - I have no clue if this is how a low infection is or can be handled.

[Josy]

Sooo, I've posted my review. Lots of rambling that doesn't make much sense (I blame the late hour and tiredness, lol!) but I have written something. For me, it's 3.5 stars rounded down to 3.

I'm off to bed now.
Sweet dreams to my European fellows and good day to my Canadian and American friends :)

[Karen]

So tell me was it the ending? Because that's what did it for me. It was just too over the top and no matte how I try to convince myself I just can't buy into it.

Also and I know we talked about this yesterday and I do think that what you said, Josy is right about the whole money issue with Colin but still it just felt like Colin's wealth grew inexplicably and exponentially. I was ok with him not wanting people to know how much money he had and I don't why but it bugged me...I don't know how else to put it. It didn't really factor into my rating it just seemed quirky. But the ending totally factored in for me. It took things from 4 stars to 3.5 and rounding down on GR. I like a solid HEA and lord knows Hernan and Colin deserved it as much as anyone and more than some but I needed believable and somehow this one fell more into the Disney princess realm than reality.

Seriously I can re-cast Sleeping Beauty with this one....
Sleeping Beauty/Princess Aurora - Hernan
Prince Philip - Colin
Maleficent - Abuela or Lonnie (Take your pick)
Flora/Fauna/Merriweather - David, Sophie, Tio Juan
or we could do Cinderella even, but I'm not sure if Snow White and the 7 dwarves wouldn't work best.

Truthfully I didn't feel this way until towards the very end...as in maybe the last 30 pages or less.

There were things about this story that I really, really liked...things like the subject matter. I think more than anything what failed is that this is big...like seriously big and while the author indicates that the inspiration for this comes from his friend Elias and another young man who arrived in the US without visas. Hernan's story is based on a combination of what happened to these two young men in their struggles to escape their homeland...so right there 2 stories combined into 1? It's a lot and while there were sensitivity readers...which, I think is fantastic there were things that I think someone in the editing process should have questioned...things, such as Ariana pointed out, Hernan's sudden teaching expertise...sorry but suddenly he's like this oober awesome teacher? I'm not even questioning that he didn't have any teaching credentials I know there are situations in adult education where a teacher isn't required to have a diploma/degree/certificate/whatever-the-hell-it's-called a quick google search tells me that some states require state certification and other states require a master's degree in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) or a related field. Ok so that took less than 5 minutes of googling to find out and while Hernan wasn't teaching at a government run educational institution as a charitable or non-profit institution I'm betting they have guidelines to follow as to who can or can't do certain things. But again, I don't know for sure and I'm not willing to spend a ton of time googling to find out because honestly this wasn't the point of the story and there was a fair bit that I was willing to overlook because I was pretty much in awe of the subject that the author had chosen to tackle. Also as Ariana said there was the whole...HIV issue and I was right there with her in the 'oh hell no!' department but I'm going to totally place this part on me, I come from the generation that remembers AIDS as a death sentence, but in the author's defense in his acknowledgements at the back of the book he thanks Dr. Christopher McMackin & Dr. Andrew C. Jorgensen, for answering his questions about the current status of HIV...so, I'm going to give the benefit of the doubt here and hope that anyone reading this would do their own research and not just take what they're reading in a book labelled fiction as any kind of gospel truth.

And at the end of the day what really started to bother me is the picture that was painted of how rosy and prefect life was for Hernan once he was granted asylum...I'm sorry, at that point I had to call 'bullsh*t' I've known more than a few people who have come to Canada (and some who originally entered through the US) and rosy is not how life was for them and a lot of them came here in less harrowing ways than Hernan. I'm not saying that the story had to end with him having a nightmare life...no thanks, that would have had me raging, but when all was said and done Hernan really hit the jackpot and things just went from one extreme to the other...the ridiculous to the sublime.

Ok, I need to stop now because I've probably spent as much time on this as I would on the review and I've got this and one other review to do. I'll chat more with you all later.

[Karen]

And that rest of my rant is over on my review...I figured if I was going to keep going on about this I might as well do it in my review and then I'd at least have accomplished something, right?

[Ariana (mostly offline)]

Karen wrote: "So tell me was it the ending? Because that's what did it for me. It was just too over the top and no matte how I try to convince myself I just can't buy into it.

Also and I know we talked about t..."

Pretty awesome ranting, Karen! ;)
Very interesting stuff you said about the teaching/qualifications etc. Thinking about it again, I guess it was more the suddenness of his inspirational performance as a teacher than not having the right qualifications ... I might have to take that out of my review.
Also totally agree about the HIV issue. I also grew up with the horrors of AIDS and the message it came with - use condoms at all times. I wonder if Robert Winter tries to give a positive message here?
And LOL, your Disney comparison is hilarious! XD

[Shile (Hazard's Version) on-hiatus]

Good morning Ladies. I had fun reading your comments, and i don't think i will be reading this series anytime sooner, i will one day but not now.

@Karen, your rant cemented my decision. Sleeping Beauty more like sleeping handsome.

[Simone - on indefinite hiatus -]

Bloody hell! Your comments here are almost as long as the book. LOL.
I don't have time to reply to everything in detail, but you know that I overall totally agree with you.

Just one thing regarding HIV: of course I belong to the same generation as Karen and Ariana, but while reading the Bad Behavior series by L.A. Witt and Cari Z. I did a bit research on the topic and it's definitely a matter of how low your viral load is. If it's undetectable as in Andreas's case there and which is almost the case here, it is really okay to ditch the condoms at some point. Of course, both partners have to be on meds for the rest of their lives/sexual relationship, but that's all.

Great, I was the one who had her review done first and now I'm apparently the last to post it. LOL.

Have a great day everyone, I'm sure we'll talk again later. :)

[Ariana (mostly offline)]

Simone wrote: "Bloody hell! Your comments here are almost as long as the book. LOL.
I don't have time to reply to everything in detail, but you know that I overall totally agree with you.

Just one thing regard..."

Thank you for that Simone! VERY interesting facts. There has obviously been progress and ways to better deal with HIV, if your viral count is low. Good to know!

[Simone - on indefinite hiatus -]

Ariana wrote: "Simone wrote: "Bloody hell! Your comments here are almost as long as the book. LOL.
I don't have time to reply to everything in detail, but you know that I overall totally agree with you.

Just o..."

You are welcome, Ariana! :) Well, studies and advancement of meds certainly made a big step since the Eighties and if you are lucky enough as to your viral load, you can live an almost 'normal' life without living in fear to infect others. :)

[Shile (Hazard's Version) on-hiatus]

Yes the HIV medicine has advanced since the 80s, i have so many friends and family members who died of AIDS.

Thank God we have ARV's now most of those infected can live longer. Also today we have discordant couples one can be positive the other negative and still be able to have children without them passing the virus to the new born.

I have 2 cousins who were born positive, they started taking ARV's from a very young age one is 16 now and the viral load is undetectable, the other is 30 with a family and 3 children , the children are all negative and her viral load is also undetectable.

[Simone - on indefinite hiatus -]

Shile loves books wrote: "Yes the HIV medicine has advanced since the 80s, i have so many friends and family members who died of AIDS.

Thank God we have ARV's now most of those infected can live longer. Also today we have..."

Argh, damn! On the one hand I'm so sorry to hear that it's so present in your family, but on the other hand I'm happy they are doing so well!!!

[Josy]

Karen wrote: "So tell me was it the ending? Because that's what did it for me. It was just too over the top and no matte how I try to convince myself I just can't buy into it.

Also and I know we talked about t..."

Your rant was definitely worth the wait :)
Very good points you are making and I like the fairy tale comparison :)

[Shile (Hazard's Version) on-hiatus]

Simone wrote: "Shile loves books wrote: "Yes the HIV medicine has advanced since the 80s, i have so many friends and family members who died of AIDS.

Thank God we have ARV's now most of those infected can live ..."

Thanks Simone. We are so happy about the advancement in meds, without them these two sweet souls would have been no more.

The key is acceptance, we had a difficult time convincing the younger one to take the meds, at some point she was so in denial, she refused to take the meds, at some point she had Kaposi sarcoma, thank God after lots of counseling she went back to the meds.

HIV/AIDS, is so high in our country especially in the rural community. At some point it was declared a state of emergency. It is a mandatory subject in schools. Sometimes when i read books relating to HIV/AIDS and see how less research the author has done, i sometimes get angry. I just hope in this book it was well researched.

[Josy]

@Simone & Shile: Thanks for this information! I didn't know that and it's awesome that a disease that caused so many deaths can be handled relatively well these days - if you have the money for the medication.

Shile, I'm sorry that your family has so much experience with HIV and AIDS!! I'm really happy to hear that it's manageable and that your cousins were given the chance to live a mostly normal life :)

[Josy]

Shile loves books wrote: "I just hope in this book it was well researched..."

Sorry, I really couldn't say. It sounded like it but I don't know enough facts to say if it was all correct information.

[Shile (Hazard's Version) on-hiatus]

Josy wrote: "@Simone & Shile: Thanks for this information! I didn't know that and it's awesome that a disease that caused so many deaths can be handled relatively well these days - if you have the money for the..."

Thanks Josy. Yes it is like a miracle, as long as one accepts and takes the meds regularly, you can live a long happy life.

[Shile (Hazard's Version) on-hiatus]

Josy wrote: "Shile loves books wrote: "I just hope in this book it was well researched..."

Sorry, I really couldn't say. It sounded like it but I don't know enough facts to say if it was all correct information."

True, you are not able to know.

[Simone - on indefinite hiatus -]

Shile loves books wrote: "Simone wrote: "Shile loves books wrote: "Yes the HIV medicine has advanced since the 80s, i have so many friends and family members who died of AIDS.

Thank God we have ARV's now most of those inf..."

Yes, I can imagine that it's sometimes difficult to make kids understand that it's only good for them to take it. :(

What was said in this book at least coincides with what I read when I researched it a while ago and with what was said in Risky Behavior as well. And I read somewhere -was it in Karen's or Ariana's review? - that the author consulted two doctors about this topic, so I guess it's pretty accurate. :)

[Simone - on indefinite hiatus -]

Josy wrote: "@Simone & Shile: Thanks for this information! I didn't know that and it's awesome that a disease that caused so many deaths can be handled relatively well these days - if you have the money for the medication."

You are welcome, Josy! :) And yeah, of course the necessary wherewithal would be mandatory if your insurance doesn't cover it.

[Shile (Hazard's Version) on-hiatus]

Simone wrote: "Shile loves books wrote: "Simone wrote: "Shile loves books wrote: "Yes the HIV medicine has advanced since the 80s, i have so many friends and family members who died of AIDS.

Thank God we have A..."

That's really great, it is good to do some research. The subject is a really sensitive one and not being at least accurate can lead to misinformation.

[Karen]

Shile loves books wrote: "Yes the HIV medicine has advanced since the 80s, i have so many friends and family members who died of AIDS.

Thank God we have ARV's now most of those infected can live longer. Also today we have..."

Wow! That is so amazing and awesome and I don't know them but I am over the moon happy for your cousins. Sadly I have a dear friend who's cousin had a different outcome and she was really close with her cousin...he was more like a best friend. It was heart breaking to see her loose someone so dear to her. So hearing stories like this...well, it's just incredibly awesome to hear. I know I didn't really touch on the HIV issue because the author gave acknowledgment to the two doctors that he resourced for current info on HIV, so I felt like he'd done his research on that one.

[Shile (Hazard's Version) on-hiatus]

Karen wrote: "Shile loves books wrote: "Yes the HIV medicine has advanced since the 80s, i have so many friends and family members who died of AIDS.

Thank God we have ARV's now most of those infected can live ..."

Thanks Karen. So sorry for your friend. Yes unfortunately many people lost their lives and people have lost friends and family members. Thanks God these days we have advanced in meds.

[Karen]

Shile loves books wrote: "Karen wrote: "Shile loves books wrote: "Yes the HIV medicine has advanced since the 80s, i have so many friends and family members who died of AIDS.

Thank God we have ARV's now most of those infe..."

Thanks and yes to all the rest...especially advanced meds.