A review by bfdbookblog
Family Man by Heidi Cullinan
3.0
3 Stars with an **
I’m pretty torn on this book. I’m a fan of both authors so I was excited to read it but I had a few issues with it while I loved parts of it.
Let me first start with some of the topics tackled in the story. Vinnie is closeted still at almost 40 and he is really struggling to come out in his big Italian catholic family. Trey has major mom issues which include alcoholism and neglect/borderline abuse…both of which were very well written. One or both of the authors either have experience with these issues or did really good research. There are a handful of church/religious stereotype references that were not overwhelming but noticeable.
Now before I get to what bothered me about the story, let me tell you what I loved. I loved Vince and Trey’s friendship and eventual love story. This is clearly a May/December story…there is a 14 year age gap…but that wasn’t an issue for anyone and really was barely mentioned. Vinnie comes from a big, loud, super involved Italian family where Trey comes from a very small very dysfunctional family. Trey is out and proud, Vinnie is, as I mentioned, still in the closet and has dead bolted the door. Their 2nd non-date is pretty perfect. Their patience with each other is endearing. The way Vinnie and his family take care of Trey and his small family is amazing. The way they just naturally fell in love was heart melting and the last scene was absolutely perfect. If you could strip away my issues listed below, this would be a 5 star read.
However, those issues remain. I don’t ever read reviews prior to reading a book – partially because I don’t want a prejudiced opinion going into it and mostly because I’ve found that not everyone is honest in their reviews so the public opinion is pretty skewed. Because of that, I didn’t know about the POV issue until I was about 20% in and had to go back a couple of chapters to make sure I was actually seeing what I thought I was seeing. And I was…conflicting/dueling points of view. Vinnie’s POV was in the 3rd person and Trey’s was in the 1st person. That this was published by a fairly big publisher - twice - with that on the pages is mind boggling to me. Were two different editors used? Did anyone read it entirely before it was published? If so, how was it decided to keep it as is? If the love story hadn’t been so great, I would have abandoned this book right then and there. I’m usually not a huge fan of co-authored books because 1) I can usually tell which author has written certain parts of the story and it doesn’t feel like collaboration or 2) the entire book feels like only one person wrote it which means it wasn’t truly collaboration. I’ve never experienced the dual points of view and I’m just confused.
Another big issue for me is the reference to one of the guys ‘being the girl’ in the relationship. This was mentioned in conversation 3 times. This is a book about 2 men becoming lovers/partners. There is no girl in the relationship. That statement is absurd and pisses me off. At one point, Vinnie mentions being more worried about being thought of as a lesser man because of his positional preference than about losing his family when coming out. Neither of those is OK with me.
A minor issue for me involved Trey’s 3 friends - Tara and Dillon and Josh. We meet them at 56% when Trey mentions them being his family. How are they so close he considers them family and we didn’t meet them for half the book? Not a huge deal I guess, but it threw me for a loop and I was already a bit of a mess because of the POV issue so I’m including it here.
A second minor issue is we never see Trey deal with his overwhelming issues with his mom. It took him a really long time in the story to even admit those issues and to finally shed a tear over. He cannot ignore them...so I'm going to assume his healing happened off page.
Honestly, this book is worth the time because of the love story. If it weren’t for that, I wouldn’t have even finished. Some of you may not have the issues I do and may love it. Some of you might not like the love story enough to get past the issues. I’ll leave that up to you.
I’m pretty torn on this book. I’m a fan of both authors so I was excited to read it but I had a few issues with it while I loved parts of it.
Let me first start with some of the topics tackled in the story. Vinnie is closeted still at almost 40 and he is really struggling to come out in his big Italian catholic family. Trey has major mom issues which include alcoholism and neglect/borderline abuse…both of which were very well written. One or both of the authors either have experience with these issues or did really good research. There are a handful of church/religious stereotype references that were not overwhelming but noticeable.
Now before I get to what bothered me about the story, let me tell you what I loved. I loved Vince and Trey’s friendship and eventual love story. This is clearly a May/December story…there is a 14 year age gap…but that wasn’t an issue for anyone and really was barely mentioned. Vinnie comes from a big, loud, super involved Italian family where Trey comes from a very small very dysfunctional family. Trey is out and proud, Vinnie is, as I mentioned, still in the closet and has dead bolted the door. Their 2nd non-date is pretty perfect. Their patience with each other is endearing. The way Vinnie and his family take care of Trey and his small family is amazing. The way they just naturally fell in love was heart melting and the last scene was absolutely perfect. If you could strip away my issues listed below, this would be a 5 star read.
However, those issues remain. I don’t ever read reviews prior to reading a book – partially because I don’t want a prejudiced opinion going into it and mostly because I’ve found that not everyone is honest in their reviews so the public opinion is pretty skewed. Because of that, I didn’t know about the POV issue until I was about 20% in and had to go back a couple of chapters to make sure I was actually seeing what I thought I was seeing. And I was…conflicting/dueling points of view. Vinnie’s POV was in the 3rd person and Trey’s was in the 1st person. That this was published by a fairly big publisher - twice - with that on the pages is mind boggling to me. Were two different editors used? Did anyone read it entirely before it was published? If so, how was it decided to keep it as is? If the love story hadn’t been so great, I would have abandoned this book right then and there. I’m usually not a huge fan of co-authored books because 1) I can usually tell which author has written certain parts of the story and it doesn’t feel like collaboration or 2) the entire book feels like only one person wrote it which means it wasn’t truly collaboration. I’ve never experienced the dual points of view and I’m just confused.
Another big issue for me is the reference to one of the guys ‘being the girl’ in the relationship. This was mentioned in conversation 3 times. This is a book about 2 men becoming lovers/partners. There is no girl in the relationship. That statement is absurd and pisses me off. At one point, Vinnie mentions being more worried about being thought of as a lesser man because of his positional preference than about losing his family when coming out. Neither of those is OK with me.
A minor issue for me involved Trey’s 3 friends - Tara and Dillon and Josh. We meet them at 56% when Trey mentions them being his family. How are they so close he considers them family and we didn’t meet them for half the book? Not a huge deal I guess, but it threw me for a loop and I was already a bit of a mess because of the POV issue so I’m including it here.
A second minor issue is we never see Trey deal with his overwhelming issues with his mom. It took him a really long time in the story to even admit those issues and to finally shed a tear over. He cannot ignore them...so I'm going to assume his healing happened off page.
Honestly, this book is worth the time because of the love story. If it weren’t for that, I wouldn’t have even finished. Some of you may not have the issues I do and may love it. Some of you might not like the love story enough to get past the issues. I’ll leave that up to you.