K. L. Romo

I rate this 3.5 stars

I received this free book from Online Book Club in exchange for my honest review. This is a book I might have picked up on my own based on the synopsis. This is a story that explores the idea of past lives and reincarnation which I do enjoy reading about. I feel if you like books about reincarnation, women's fight for equality, and or stories with a strong female lead, you should enjoy this book. The writing does feel a little first book to me but the editing is on point. I didn't notice any typos or misspellings.

[i]Life Before[/i] follows the intertwining stories of a present day woman, Elaine Dearborn and the woman of her previous life, Eliza Darling. Elaine is a writer but has put her career aside to raise her boys. Since she is now an empty nester she has the time to start writing again. Elaine quickly finds herself experiencing another life which is impossible yet absolutely real. Elaine struggles with keeping her sanity in her present day life as she has more and more flashbacks. She finally confides to an open-minded friend what she is experiencing. Her friend then helps Elaine find her grounding and she is then able to write about Eliza Darling's life and shed light into the dark and dangerous world that was Dallas Texas in the early 1900s and Eliza's brave fight to save the other women and girls trapped in sexual slavery. At the end of the books synopsis it does say[i] Life Before [/i] is a work of fiction but the Virginia K. Johnson Home & Training Center for Women is a real place dedicated to helping women out of prostitution. I felt that brought a sense of believability and realness to the story.

I wish I could give this book a higher rating as it was an interesting book but I disliked the most how jarringly different the writing styles were between the 1st person narrative and the 3rd person narrative. The first Three chapters where difficult to read and make sense of what was going on and who was where because of how it was written. I don't enjoy first person narratives to start with so I was already struggling with that. The writing in the first chapter especially felt disjointed and messy to me. Once the 3rd person narrative started the writing dramatically improved. The writing flowed and became a pleasure to read. I could clearly picture in my mind's eye what I was reading. In later chapters the first person narrative did improve once I started reading from Eliza diary. I understand the need for 1st person in a diary format but I would have enjoyed the whole book a lot more had it been written in 3rd person.

I liked the honesty and believability in this story. It would have been easy to overdramatize the horrors the girls in 1900s went through and have the ending wrapped up in a pretty happily ever after bow. That is not how it ends and I like that. The least believable thing for me was when present day Elaine confided in her friend her friend hardly batted an eye before jumping on board.

I liked and disliked the violence and some of the more explicit scenes. I'm not sure why since nothing indicated one way or another how "adult" this book was. Going into this book I was expecting a PG-13 read so I was taken by surprise when the violence was described in such detail and rawness. Which again is not a bad thing. It was simply unexpected for me. If you are susceptible to being triggered by violence against women this book is not for you. The situations described in [i] Life Before [/i] is real, it is raw. It doesn't sugarcoat the awfulness humans are capable of. To me it showcases how brave the women who helped rescue the working girls really were. I could have done without the explicit scenes. A few of them I understood where needed to tell the story properly but it still made me uncomfortable. [i] Life Before [/i] does voice some strong opinions on some highly debated topics. Some opinions I agree with others I do not and that's ok. I respect K. L. Romo for going there and putting a strong opinion out there and not shying away anything.… (mehr)

There is no hero in this story, and for sure Harvey Dunne is not an hero. Maybe heroes are those men whose deaths change forever Harvey’s life, in good and bad.

Till a young age Harvey Dunne knew that he was not like the other boys and for sure he was not like his father. Where his older brother was the right eye of the father, strong and handsome and the perfect sportsman, Harvey was thin and small, he loved playing piano and baking cookies. But he really tried to please his father, without success. Then at 10 years old he meets Warren, the son of divorced parents, and at the beginning of the ’60 this was enough to make him a pariah like Harvey’s inability at sports. Probably there was more that linked them, and an afternoon spent under the rain discovering each other body for the first time let them understand a lot of things, but they were too young and too scared to read more. The afternoon was saved in their memory, and Harvey continued to try to be like the other boys. At the same time when Harvey is finally grown enough to acknowledge his sexuality, Warren is “caught” with another guy, and Harvey witnesses first hand what it means being gay in small town Texas. The consequences are terrible, and Warren is the first victim to pave Harvey’s path towards darkness.

Not only Harvey chooses to deny himself, he also leads towards a life in the most conservative of societies, once that groups together homosexuals and non Caucasian people among the unacceptable. At the same Harvey is not committing suicide and doing it: Harvey, the body, is living, but Harvey the spirit is long ago dead, eve before that first victim, Warren. He is so long ago dead, that neither other victims move him, neither when they are very dear to his heart, and neither when he himself is a victim. Harvey is always ready to help people, to pass along a word of comfort, but he always does that in the shadow, never making a statement, never taking a position.

Harvey is not a daring man, but he is a good man. I don’t think Harvey is the picture of the man of the changing, Harvey is the picture of the father of that man. Harvey is born too long ago to be able to be a main actor, what he could have done, if he was a daring man, was to live his life as homosexual, without marrying, but always in the shadow, in the closet. If he had tried to make a statement with his life, he would have been another victim. Like that instead, he had the change to give birth and raising more caring people, way different from his father, people who probably will change the world.

Is Harvey Dunne? Is not only the story of Harvey, it’s also the story of Warren, who as I said, it’s probably the only real hero, the story of Curtis, who picked up Warren’s legacy, the story of Thomas Quinlan, the other victim that pushed Harvey out of the darkness he fell into after Warren, but also of the two anonymous couple whose bashing will always bear on Harvey’s conscience. This novel is a ride of more than 30 years of LGBT history, and the sadly thing is that a real changing is seen only in the very last years of that ride. It’s plenty sad and tragic, but it’s not without hope, in the end there is light for Harvey and above all for his children.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0578015218/?tag=elimyrevandra-20… (mehr)

This book is written from the point of view of Harvey Dunne. A man who tries so hard to live life as a heterosexual even though his heart isn’t in it.

“Is Harvey Dunne?” takes a reader through an honest, realistic, poignant journey as to how homosexuals were treated in the early nineties. (And let’s be honest, are still being treated like this today) Even though Harvey is the story teller, as a reader you will learn how everyone he knows is affected by his actions and feelings. The only reason this book works is because it’s real, everyone can relate to the characters and nothing is forced.

This book made me laugh, smile, scream and cry in just the right spots. Again, the only way that was possible was because this book was written in a realistic and documentary style. You could feel the helplessness and frustration of each character and were walked though it which gave the feelings that much more substance.

This book blew me away and should be featured in every book store in my opinion. Every single one. Front and center. With huge spotlights shining down on it. That’s how much I back this book.… (mehr)