Better Than People by Roan Parrish

Friday, June 23, 2023--San Antonio 

Better Than People by Roan Parrish is not the kind of book I normally read.  It hasn't gotten great reviews from "respected" sources, plus it is acknowledged as being a romance novel.  But the last 2-3 "good" books I have read were boring for me--to the point that it took a week to 10 days to finish a 350-page tome.  This book was on my list of books that were available from Libby (where I check out all of my books from the local library), the the readers (most of whom probably chose it particularly for the fact it is a romance novel) had rated it fairly well (4+).  Well, I won't rate it that high, but it was so enjoyable to read it; I found myself laughing aloud over and over again. It's the story of two gay men who find themselves living isolated lives in a small Wyoming town.  When one breaks a leg, someone tells him about an app he could use to try to find a volunteer to assist by walking his dogs and one of his cats twice each day since he was not going to handle the leashes and his crutches at the same time himself.  (He broke his leg during a regular walk with the pets by going after the spooked cat and falling down a ravine.)  The other main character answers the app request.  It seems to be lust at first sight on both parts, but there are problems.  The young man who answers the app and comes to walk the pets has severe anxiety problems when it comes to communicating verbally.  The one who has broken his leg is rather boisterous (to the point of scaring the anxious one) and was already depressed before the accident because of having felt that his long-time friend and business partner had betrayed him a few months earlier.  But a relationship slowly begins to develop after quite a few hits and misses.  It's the non-spoken coherent thoughts of the shy one that provide most of the laughs.  If he could only communicate verbally the words that flash into his mind, everyone would find him charming and funny.  As the book progresses, they both help each other (the pet owners suggests that the walker might be more comfortable texting what he wants to say) as well as falling in love with each other.  Pet lovers will especially like the book, since there are 4 dogs and 3 cats in the home which all become part of the story, too.  I became frustrated several times with things that just didn't seem plausible as part of the story.  One of the main ones:  The character with the broken leg, although gay, is quite manly.  Yet he uses "Darling" regularly as his term of endearment for the other character.  It just seems out of character.  But also there were points where something happened and I thought, "That doesn't seem right considering what was said earlier in the story."  (For instance, the walker can't hug his grandmother when he returns home because she is so allergic to pet dander, yet she can come to dinner later at the pet owner's home and they plan on having her over regularly as the novel wraps up.) Anyway, I gave the book 3 stars out of 5 (and considered 2 1/2 out of 5) because I enjoyed the story in general and I enjoyed laughing so much.  But don't read it expecting quality literature; it's just not that well written.