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A review by bfdbookblog
One Bullet by Casey Wolfe
3.0
While the synopsis captured me, the story fell a bit short for me. I liked Ethan and Shawn together…I thought they were sweet at times and their banter was entertaining. Davies was a great supporting character as were Ethan’s family. All of the sex scenes are off page so if you are looking for that you won’t find it here (this doesn’t bother me but I know some folks want some on page scenes).
Here are my issues with the book (some of these may be a little spoiler-ish and may not make sense to those that haven’t read the story):
1. The opening scene is still confusing to me. I don’t understand why the patrolmen were after Ethan at all. It was purported they chased and attempt to apprehend him because he looked suspicious but that is a huge stretch for me considering the lengths they went to for his capture.
2. The flow of book was erratic as the transition between scenes skipped what I would consider critical points of the story. We went from dating and not sleeping together to so serious that Ethan freaked out and stopped communicating with Shawn while he worked through his issues…and said issues were weak at best. Large amounts of time were skipped between scenes which made it hard to follow. This felt almost like a really long plot outline that needed to have more meat added to complete the story.
3. Shawn’s family was brought into the story and was left as a dangling storyline. Shawn didn’t want to reconcile with them but still attended a family party…with Ethan…which he knew would be an issue but nothing came of that at all, it just sort of died.
4. Shawn seems to have a couple of issues to work through – which were uncovered when he attended Ethan’s shrink sessions with him. So much so that he stopped attending the sessions. Those were never dealt with. Again, a dangling story line for me. Both this and Shawn’s family either need more attention or should be removed from the story as they were superfluous to the book at this point.
5. Ethan progressed through his therapy even hanging out at the cop shop surrounded by patrolmen. He improved so much over the course of the story; he backed off to going once a week but completely panicked when a few of patrolmen came into the bar he and Ethan were in making it seem like he hadn’t progressed at all. We had a front row seat to his shrink sessions at the beginning of the story but that stopped which led me to believe he was better. His progress was a bit conflicting so I’m not sure he’s fully recovered even though the focus is taken away from his therapy and shifted to his relationship with Shawn (this goes back to the erratic flow of the story).
This was slow read with really not much happening. It was my first Casey Wolfe book so I’m not sure if this is the norm or not. I'm not sure I'd read another.
Here are my issues with the book (some of these may be a little spoiler-ish and may not make sense to those that haven’t read the story):
1. The opening scene is still confusing to me. I don’t understand why the patrolmen were after Ethan at all. It was purported they chased and attempt to apprehend him because he looked suspicious but that is a huge stretch for me considering the lengths they went to for his capture.
2. The flow of book was erratic as the transition between scenes skipped what I would consider critical points of the story. We went from dating and not sleeping together to so serious that Ethan freaked out and stopped communicating with Shawn while he worked through his issues…and said issues were weak at best. Large amounts of time were skipped between scenes which made it hard to follow. This felt almost like a really long plot outline that needed to have more meat added to complete the story.
3. Shawn’s family was brought into the story and was left as a dangling storyline. Shawn didn’t want to reconcile with them but still attended a family party…with Ethan…which he knew would be an issue but nothing came of that at all, it just sort of died.
4. Shawn seems to have a couple of issues to work through – which were uncovered when he attended Ethan’s shrink sessions with him. So much so that he stopped attending the sessions. Those were never dealt with. Again, a dangling story line for me. Both this and Shawn’s family either need more attention or should be removed from the story as they were superfluous to the book at this point.
5. Ethan progressed through his therapy even hanging out at the cop shop surrounded by patrolmen. He improved so much over the course of the story; he backed off to going once a week but completely panicked when a few of patrolmen came into the bar he and Ethan were in making it seem like he hadn’t progressed at all. We had a front row seat to his shrink sessions at the beginning of the story but that stopped which led me to believe he was better. His progress was a bit conflicting so I’m not sure he’s fully recovered even though the focus is taken away from his therapy and shifted to his relationship with Shawn (this goes back to the erratic flow of the story).
This was slow read with really not much happening. It was my first Casey Wolfe book so I’m not sure if this is the norm or not. I'm not sure I'd read another.