Who doesn’t love a childhood friendship that turns into a second-chance romance after one has moved countries away and they reconnect later in life? I know I do, so that’s why when this one landed in my inbox I requested a copy.*
The Book of Elis is the story of Ieuan and Elis who were inseparable as kids, but Elis and his family move from a small village in Wales to bustling Brisbane, Australia. When Elis and Ieuan are in university their families decide to take a joint vacation to Tenerife in Spain and the story goes from there.
Elis is a show-off and kind of a dick, but so much of it is posturing and trying to impress Ieuan. Ieuan, if possible is even more of a dick. He’s confident in who he is, which is nice, but the way he handles so many of the situations emphasizes he’s just as immature as Elis. The book is crafted as a private journal from Ieaun’s perspective and I think it’d be really interesting to hear the opposite side from Elis because Elis seems to be the only one who changes in the roughly 115 pages of text.
I can’t fault Skelton’s writing style though, it was engaging and seemed to be well edited and proofread, so kudos to that. What I can fault her for is this quote I stumbled across on her Goodreads author profile:
She particularly enjoys subverting romantic tropes and hetereonormative narratives, but she still loves a good, old-fashioned happy ending.
Now, I’m not sure if there was any subverting of romantic tropes or heteronormativity in this novella. Maybe she doesn’t quite understand the heteronormative part or maybe she took an incredibly one-dimensional view of it. The reason I say this is because Ieuan and Elis could’ve spent the entire book discovering each other sexually, exploring all positions with each other, and really challenging Elis’s perceived heterosexuality, but they didn’t which was a big disappointment considering one of the early scenes had Ieuan showing Elis how to pleasure himself anally demonstrating on himself, and never once did Elis and Ieuan switch who was doing what to the other when it came to butt stuff. This was incredibly odd to me after that introduction because Ieuan clearly enjoyed that type of pleasure but he either never wanted it from Elis, was too enraptured with topping the ‘straight’ guy, or, most likely, Skelton forgot.
The story itself was fine, as mentioned above, but it could’ve been longer. Why leave us at the junction of whether they will or won’t end up in the same country, why after having them declare love for each other end the story. I get that it provided a great waypoint, but the crises of the novel were superficial and so low stakes, what would happen when they lived near each other and could see each other regularly? What would happen as they continued to explore and develop sexually with each other? What would happen if a woman comes along that one or both of them are attracted to? Or another man? There just wasn’t enough depth and the depth Skelton went for, for me at least, was too shallow because of the characters’ immaturity.
Recommendation: This was a surprising read. It was well edited and proofread (shocking honestly at this point from GRR and self-published authors), and the story kept my attention. I had some issues with the characters as they explored their sexual relationship, even before I saw the quote on Goodreads about the author, and only having this told from Ieuan’s perspective I think didn’t do it justice. I’ll probably give Skelton another go in the future, but if she lets me down on “subverting” heteronormativity/romance tropes or just inverts one again she’ll probably fall off my radar.
*I received a copy of The Book of Elis via Gay Romance Reviews in return for my honest opinion. No goods or money were exchanged.
Opening Line: “I decided to write this last night after everyone had gone to bed.”
Closing Line: “God. I can’t wait.” (Whited out to avoid spoilers, highlight to read.)