Book 705: The Weight of It All – N.R.Walker

For our anniversary Tim got me a new Kindle Oasis (so freakin’ fancy) and a Kindle Unlimited membership. I’d avoided the unlimited membership because of the rumors that it’s flooded with self-published works and knock off copies of popular works, but I am definitely going to take advantage of it and see if I can find out if it’s worth the rather steep price when I can get 95% of what I want from my local library.

My first stop, was of course MM romances because why not? I liked the premise of this one, a larger guy dumped because he gained weight and become complacent in his relationship slowly finding himself and falling for his hell-a hot trainer who has his own backstory. What I didn’t realize was that I had previously read a book by N.R. Walker, Upside Down, that I thoroughly enjoyed.

This one, however started off on a different foot because of a typo in the front of the book.

“Warning: Intended for an 18+ audience only. This book contains material that maybe [sic] offensive to some and is intended for a mature, adult audience. It contains graphic language, explicit sexual content, and adult situations.”

It’s not a big one, but it was enough to make me shake my head and wonder what I got into (at this point I hadn’t realized I’d read Upside Down). I immediately went and checked the other book I downloaded by Walker at the same time, Throwing Hearts, and it had THE SAME TYPO and the best part was, it’s on the page where she acknowledges her proof readers and editors?! So yeah, definitely not off to a good start in my books. I didn’t go back and check Upside Down, but decided to push through my hesitations and give it a read. Overall it is decently edited and the copy editing seems to have caught 98% of everything else (which is better than Arctic Wild, Albert’s next book I review. WTF Carina Press!?)

So, all of that aside, I still wasn’t the biggest fan of this book because the characters personalities just didn’t do it for me. Which is weird because I should’ve 100% identified with Henry because I mean he’s basically me at various points in my life. There’s ridiculous humor, a lack of filter, despising of health food, etc. And Reed, the love interest, was just meh.

There were a couple of aww moments, including the revelation that Reed is a former-fat-kid and has a lot of self-image issues considering he’s totally fit, but even those were sort of meh.

“Let me be clear about something. My contentment did not come from weight loss. It came from accepting myself, and that was something Reed had taught me to differentiate. It came from setting goals and accomplishing them, even when I thought I couldn’t. It came from being able to look in a mirror and being happy with who I saw smiling back at me. I never realised just how invisible I’d been―how invisible I’d wanted to be―when I was at my biggest. How I’d used humour as a shield to defend myself before others could throw hurtful slurs at me. I mean, I was still funny―okay, let’s face it, I’m hilarious, and we all know it―but now my jokes weren’t used as weapons. And the fact Reed fell in love with me when I was at my heaviest, and loved me still, proved to me that he was what I’d thought all along.” (236)

I think a good portion of this has to do with how Walker wrote the characters. They both came across as immature and somewhat shallow even though that was against the whole point of the novel. The jokes and conversations fell flat more often than not and even those swoon worthy aww moments were like 80% of the way there. And the sex scenes were definitely rushed, not because the characters were caught in the moment, but because they weren’t written that great.

And on the sex side of things I did appreciate Walker including some non-vanilla sex comments/innuendos for Henry’s heterosexual friends

“Sean dragged her to the front door. ‘I’m considering limiting your consumption of wine when you two are together.’ They got half out the door when Anika tried to whisper and failed. ‘And I’m considering pegging you again when we get home.'” (123)

There was something refreshing seeing them talk about this in front of someone else not in shame or as a kink, but just as another part of their sex life. There was more leading up to this where Sean was embarrassed, but it was all in good fun and it provided some interesting levity to the conversation and the book as a whole.

Recommendation: Definitely not the worst self-published book I’ve ever read. The story was a good one and it’s a quick read, but the characters just didn’t do it for me. I know Walker can write great characters, but these just felt really immature for late-20s/mid-30s individuals and the dialogue suffered because of this.

Opening Line: “Most people can’t tell you the moment their life changed.”

Closing Line: “He was my true counterweight. Like I said. Perfect. cue Chariots of Fire music“ (Whited out to avoid spoilers, highlight to read.)

Additional Quotes from The Weight of It All
“Thou shall not pass was too bloody right. I’d never make it in Middle Earth because two minutes on this frickin’ machine almost killed me. Fuck going to Mordor. I couldn’t even go around the block.” (15)

“If he doesn’t love you at your worst, then he doesn’t deserve to love you at your best.” (45)

“Rihanti, Lena, and I both stared at him. It was completely gross and completely not related to what we were talking about and very much how most of my conversations ended up. I realised that maybe Kadin and I had more in common than I first realised and made a mental note that I liked him now and would make an effort to be awkward with him together.” (70)

“And I had to admit, going jeans shopping with Reed wasn’t exactly a hardship. Except for the sales guy, who just about fell over himself trying to help him. Some bottle-blond twink with twigs for legs and zero shame pounced on Reed like a Chihuahua trying to hump his leg . . . ‘His full pedigree kennel name is Shameless Bottom Needs a Muscle Daddy, but he gets called Chihuahua Boy for short.'” (92)