Shy tattoo artist Ash has a troubled past. Years of neglect, drug abuse, and life on the streets have taken their toll, and sometimes it seems the deep, unspoken bond with his lover is the only balm for wounds he doesn’t quite understand.
Chicago paramedic Pete is warmth, love, and strength—things Ash never knew he could have, and never even knew he wanted until Pete showed him. But fate is a cruel, cruel mistress, and when nightmares collide with the present, their tentatively built world comes crashing down.
Traumatic events in Pete’s work life distance him from home, and he doesn’t realize until it’s too late that Ash has slipped away. Betrayal, secrets, and lies unfold, and when a devastating coincidence takes hold, Pete must fight with all he has to save the love of his life.
I take full responsibility for this. I didn't really read the blurb. I saw a slew of my friends have loved it and pounced when the request came through.
My mistake.
I usually avoid books that center around mental illness but the catch-22 is I love damaged characters triumphing over hardship and finding happiness against all odds. Sometimes I take a chance and it works out fantastic like with Lucky or Rat Park but other times I end up here, feeling badly for not being more circumspect.
Slide started to sour early on for me mostly because I couldn't connect with either Pete or Ash. What's more, I didn't like either one of them and-the final nail in coffin-I don't think they're good for each other.
Slide covers about two years with them beginning as roommates introduced by Ash's BFF, Ellie, who I loathed from the moment she opened her fat-shaming mouth. There's not one woman portrayed in this book that I could identify with. They're all one-dimensional cliches of the catty best friend, the vapid ex-girlfriend/hookup, the hipster girl everyone loves to hate just not to her face, the pretentious WASP-y elitist and the feeble-minded but lovable mother.
This boilerplate misogyny I could maybe (big maybe) overlook in a strictly gay romance but both Pete and Ash are allegedly bisexual and have had girlfriends in the past. Though why they wasted their time on women they clearly believed were inferior nitwits is beyond me.
Not to dissect them to death but I actually don't think either one of them has a wealth of insight into themselves which made for a truly dysfunctional relationship that was difficult to read and brought me little enjoyment. I appreciate that they've both suffered in their lives, and even empathize with their trials and tribulations to an extent, but suffering doesn't give one carte blanche to treat others with such insouciance. Suffering nor mental illness excuses judgmental and obdurate behaviors either such as Pete's treatment of David, who seemingly has Ash's best interests at heart.
I was torn. David was a plastic surgeon. In my eyes, that barely made him human, but he was still a doctor, and regardless of anything else, Ash was still really sick.
The office was plush with its leather couch and expensive artwork, tucked away in the surgical wing of an exclusive, private hospital. It was how the other half of the medical profession lived-plastic surgeons hidden away from the masses. What was I doing here? What the fuck did David know about people? I knew for a fact that David wasn't reconstructing burn victims or patching up war vets. Nah, it was all about vanity. Meg's weird-looking nose was his own fucking work.
So... because he's wealthy and not the sort of physician that Pete finds honorable that makes him untrustworthy and contemptible? That's a bitter pill to swallow considering it's coming from a fractious malcontent like Pete who had earlier referred to someone on the verge of jumping to his death as a 'crazie' and was "pissed" that he had to wait for him to either decide to commit suicide or the police to talk him off the ledge.
Even sometimes the way they treat each other went all over me. Why must they call each other 'fucker' and 'asshole' and the like constantly? It seemed like some sort of halfhearted attempt at 'dark' characterizations but missed the mark and hit contrived instead. I'm not even going to touch their non-existent communication skills. But what I found particularly abhorrent was how Pete somehow made Ash's history of abuse about him.
How he couldn't handle it.
How he couldn't deal.
Which brings me to the abuse and mental illness. Trigger warnings for mentions of past sexual abuse, neglect, drug usage, homelessness and physical abuse. I'm not going to go full on psychology 101 here. Everyone presents and deals with trauma in their own way. There's no template but there are criteria that need to be met and those criteria are more than just words on a page, more than reading the DSM. That being said, there seemed to be some dramatic license taken with Ash's symptomology.
Regardless, I give kudos to authors who tackle abuse and its long-term ramifications and am glad that Ash seeking some professional help was finally broached. After two years but better late than never. Now perhaps he will begin to encourage Pete to seek some help of his own.
I'm not going to proceed further since obviously this didn't work for me. Maybe it improves and I'm depriving myself. I don't know; however, the vast majority of the reviews for this book and series are favorable, so I would encourage anyone interested to read them also.
A copy was provided in exchange for an honest review.
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