The Spiral Down (Lili’s Review)

Title: The Spiral Down (The Fall Up #2)
Author: Aly Martinez
Publisher: Self Published
Release Date: May 17th 2016
Genre(s): Contemporary Romance
Page Count: 3894 Kindle Locations
Reviewed by: Lili
Heat Level: 3 flames out of 5
Rating: 2.5-3 stars out of 5
Blurb:

Standalone M/M romance.

I was afraid to fly.
He made me soar.

After years of climbing the ladder of success in the music industry, I finally had everything I could want.
Yet I still found myself wandering through life alone.

Captain Evan Roth was the one man I never saw coming.
Tall, dark, mysterious… Straight.

We were both damaged beyond repair and searching for something so elusive we weren’t sure it even existed.

But, when two broken souls collide in midair, falling is a given.

I just never expected to crave the spiral down.

This one started off great.

Rockstar ✔
Rags to riches ✔
Palpable chemistry ✔
Funny banter ✔
Nice pace ✔
Damaged heroes ✔

I was loving it and then-

The plot took a nosedive.

SPOILERS AHEAD. I try my hardest not to post any spoilers, but for me to explain why I rated this book low I needed to.

Spoiler

Let me break it down on why it fell apart for me.

-So Henry likes to sleep with straight men because he wants one to fall completely for him and make him feel wanted, needed.
^This gave me a small case of the roll eyes, but I went with it. Hoping this wasn’t going the way, I thought it’d go.
-Enter Evan whom Henry thinks is straight.
-Evan is Bi but doesn’t like to be labeled. Plus, after being hurt in a prior relationship with a man has sworn off men.
-After some chasing, the two finally start getting somewhere.
-Feelings are declared and to prove to Henry his feelings he does the one thing he’s sworn never to do again: allow a man to top him.
^This also gave me a case of the roll eyes, but I again went with it since up to this point I was enjoying the book.

AND where it all falls apart for me.

-After they’re intimate Henry realizes there’s no way Evan had never been with a man before and is heartbroken. He leaves him. He can’t deal with the fact that Evan wasn’t as straight as he thought. He thought he’d found “the” straight guy that filled that void left from his childhood. That loved so completely he loved him being despite being heterosexual.
^I kid you not. Henry left Evan after they’d just declared their feelings for each other because Evan wasn’t “straight enough” for him. Umm, no. This killed this book for me. It rubbed me the wrong way. I know what the author was trying to do – Henry needed to feel that all encompassing love- but I’m not on board with how it was done.
-Henry not only leaves but cuts off all communication. He ignores Evan’s texts and calls.
A. I hate when characters “run away”.
B. I felt that Henry completely ignoring Evan without trying to talk things out with him immature. His behavior reminded me of sulking teenager and not that of an adult.
-And to add insult to injury- Evan ends up being the one that hunts down Henry at the end- with some help. I’d hoped that Henry would realize how warped his views were, see how juvenile he was acting and seek Evan out to apologize but no.

But at least the epilogue was sweet.

It’s been a while since a book completely unraveled for me at the end like this. It was highly disappointing. I think it was more a personal issue for me. The conflict of the book- for some reason I found almost borderline offensive. I can’t explain it I saw red. I’m sorry to be so vague, and it’s probably me being over sensitive. Satisfaction Rating 2.5 Stars but I’ll round up since it’s probably me. I know I’ll be the minority on this one, and I know this author comes with a large M/F following so I’m sure it’ll do just fine.

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