Okay, I finished it.

I reached the end of Almost Like Being in Love. (And for crap's sake, don't read this if you hate spoilers. I'm not a reviewer.)

When Kluger writes poignant, he writes poignant so damned well, with a sweetness that's almost rarified. I teared up over this or that phrase, teared up over this or that scene, ached for Travis, ached for Craig . . . then wanted to kick them both in the ass by letting my foot connect with the book.

Why? Because there was so much piddling around at the end of the story, such bizarre, herky-jerk pacing, so many scene shifts and switches of perspective, so many incomprehensible reactions and decisions and changes of heart, that the poignancy kept being diluted or completely neutralized. I had no bloody idea who would end up with whom (except in the case of a half-dozen secondary characters) until the last handful of pages. Up to then, I felt as if my chain was being jerked forty-three different ways.

When the Big Reunion I'd been waiting for finally seemed solid enough not to crumble beneath yet another switcheroo -- and I had to re-read a bunch of pages several times to make sure -- it was anticlimactic. By that point, I'd already been duped more times than I could count. (The deus ex machina breakup that paved the way for the reunion was so damned abrupt, I almost missed it. What's more, it was shockingly offhanded, given all the un-breakup-like words and actions that preceded it.)

I wanted buildup, damn it, not a carnival ride! I wanted to be all breathless with anticipation and melty inside and then puddle up at the end . . . because I haven't had a good cry over a book since "Brokeback." Instead, my reaction was more like Finally. Am I allowed to be happy for these guys now? Sheesh.

Maybe the conclusion of this story was the author's nod to real life; happy endings, if they come at all, don't often come tidily. But since the rest of the book was anything but a nod to real life, why start when the romance should be ratcheting up instead of flung around in the Mad Tea Party ride at Disneyland? Or maybe the author was trying to demonstrate precisely how and why the heroes were special, why their love endured, why they were worthy of their HEA. That I can appreciate, but I just can't appreciate the way he did it.

I've been spoiled by the romance genre. I realize now just how much. I've turned into a complete sap. Maybe I've turned into a complete simpleton. Hell, maybe I've always been a closet idealist who craves that satisfyingly predictable march from estrangement to togetherness with no emotional detours or artificial barriers so close to the end.

In any case, kudos to Kluger. I only get this riled up if I'm either totally invested in characters or totally alienated by them. And I wasn't alienated. In fact, I was very nearly heartbroken at a couple of points.

Phrew. Now what should I read?

Almost Like Being in Love

That's what I'm now reading, that sweet, funny love story Wave so highly recommended. I was sucked in by it at first. I laughed frequently; sometimes I wanted to cry. Then twenty years passed between chapters -- blammy! -- and the heroes, now a continent apart, were all grown up and involved in their respective lives and careers.

That wasn't a problem for me at first. Passages of time exist in most novels. Temporary estrangement of the central couple is also common. Still, as I read on, I started getting just a teensy bit irked and impatient. With the heroes apart, the author started dishing up too much clever-and-amusing just for the sake of clever-and-amusing. Every character that was introduced was clever-and-amusing.

I also realized I was getting bored with the baseball fetish and the lawyer-related stuff, and that without any significant plot involving the book's original couple, the entire narrative was being carried on the back of clever-and-amusing. Only ... the narrative didn't seem to be going anywhere.

Is that it? I wondered. Is too-much-of-a-good-thing dampening this reading experience for me?

Out of curiosity, I went to Amazon to check out other readers' reactions. The book was almost universally praised, but there were a few sniffy souls who gave it a 1. A freakin' 1. (I wasn't thoroughly surprised; there are grumblers everywhere, and they're often self-righteous types who take themselves WAY too seriously because they've had their sense of humor surgically removed.) But I perused their comments anyway, hoping to get a fix on my own small undercurrent of disaffection.

Sure enough, these negative "reviews" were generally hightoned and dry and pretty much beyond my comprehension, as if these people and I had read two entirely different books. But one of them did say something that struck a chord: there's no differentiation among the characters' voices.

Yup, that was it. Or part of it. A sudden plethora of players, all of whom have the same voice: the protagonists, their male and female friends, their gay and straight friends, their lovers, students, coworkers, parents, even a young boy. They all, and I mean ALL, were dipping from the same witty, educated voice-pot. I wouldn't have been able to tell them apart if the author hadn't made it obvious whose words I was reading.

What's more, their droll observations and snappy repartee had been substituted for any kind of storyline. The book just stalled out in the middle. The cast of characters bumbled around in a Three Stooges kind of way, saying and doing zany things. As much as I love humor, it started getting on my nerves.

Don't get me wrong. I'm still engaged by this book and still eagerly anticipating the reunion of the protags. If there's an HEA buzzkill, though, I'll be rip-roaringly pissed off.

I almost always learn something from the novels and stories I read, either through positive or negative example. In addition to providing me with hours of entertainment, Almost Like Being in Love has been an eye-opener, another object lesson in the craft of fiction.