Book Review by @RobertHughes05 of “Game On: A Love’s Landscape Story” by Olley White

Title: Game On: A Love’s Landscape Story
Author: Olley White http://olleywhite.blogspot.co.uk
Format: Kindle Edition
Price: £0.00 Free
File Size: 468 KB
Print Length: 124 pages
Genre: Gay, Romance, Fantasy
Simultaneous Device usage: Unlimited
Publisher: L.Powell
Published: 8 Sept 2014
Language: English
ASIN: B00NFUONFU
Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray: Enabled
Word Wise: Not Enabled
Sold by: Amazon UK Amazon US

Max thinks he is about to meet Stephanie on a blind date.  The two have only ever communicated via an online gaming site.  Stephanie turns out to be Stefan, but they enjoy their day out at the Zoo anyway and, as the day goes on, they become the best of friends.  As time goes on, both start to get feelings more than of just friendship for each other and, gradually, they fall in love.  ‘Game On’ is a book about two men falling in love with each other, but it’s not as easy as just falling in love.  No, there are feelings to consider and Max, after all, is straight, having had several girlfriends in the past.

I found this book to be a roller-coaster of a ride.  It was rather difficult to get into, but I stuck with it and was somewhat glad I did.  Then, it began to sink again and I seriously thought about putting the book down for good, but I persevered and finished it.  Being a gay man, I found it hard to relate to the characters.  To me, they did not seem real and did not seem to be living the life of a gay person as I know it.  Yes, we all live different lives, but having been gay all my life and having many gay friends, I found it hard to relate to most of what was happening to Max and Stefan.

White certainly wrote this love story well but, in the real world as I know it, the time it took for the relationship to develop into something physical, was way too long.  There were times when Max and Stefan both knew they wanted to take their relationship further, but White always put obstacles in their way.  OK, I suppose that is part of the story, and for Max I can understand this with him coming to terms with the fact that he may be bisexual or gay, but for Stefan, I found the obstacles to be rather silly and raised my eyebrows wondering if such obstacles would really ever exist.  Even after meeting each other many times and becoming the best of friends, and Max giving Stefan signs that he wanted to take their relationship further, White choose for Stefan to ignore all the signs which I am sure a gay man would not do.

‘Game On’ is a very easy read but it did not generate any emotions for me.  Usually when I read a book I will feel some kind of an emotion such as happiness, sadness, anger, feeling frightened, etc, but ‘Game On’ failed to raise any emotions in me what so ever.  Stefan would very much play the clown in the book, but the humour failed to come through the pages and make me laugh or smile.  There were parts of the book which reminded me of times when a new boyfriend would introduce me to his straight friends, but it was never as easy as White made it out to be.

If you are looking for a simple straight forward love story with a slight difference, then ‘Game On’ could be the very book to read, but don’t expect to come out of it with the feeling that you must read it again.  For me it was not a book that I would talk to friends about because I would not really have an awful lot of interesting things to say about it.

Although the book was not the best of reads, I did like the author’s style of writing.  It was simple to follow and the story flowed along nicely.  Some of the descriptions were very well written and never, at any stage, did I have to really think about what was really going on in the story.  I’m not a huge fan of books where I’m not really certain what is going on, ending up having to reread whole chapters and maybe putting the book down for good, so well done to White for keeping me reading.  I’ll certainly read other books written by Olley White, but I won’t be thinking about ‘Game On’ while I am reading them.

Ratings
Realistic Characterisation: 2/5
Made Me Think: 2/5
Overall Enjoyment: 2.5/5
Readability: 4/5
Recommended: 2.5/5
Overall Rating: 2.5/5

Review by:
Hugh Roberts

 

 

 

 

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