Gaynamics

Come on now, don't label me as a homophobe right away just because of my immature pun. Read the review first, and then label me. Today I read Dynamics by Maria Santicelli. By the way, her story starts with like a ten page rant about how you can't use it or look at it or even get droplets of it on your kindle until you PAY like a MORAL and HARD-WORKING member of society! I hate when authors are only in it for the money, so please go steal her story and use it for firewood or whatever.

(Link)

Here's a little description she wrote up, just for this blog post:

"Army ranger Ty Black muses about the group dynamics of his camp in general and his all male team in particular. It's not easy living the army life, especially in close quarters.

"Dynamics" is the first part of a series that centers around the life and relationships of army ranger Ty Black and his team mates. Nothing runs ever smoothly for any of them, and when inappropriate, unwanted feelings make their existence known, they find it hard to deal with the consequences. Escalation seems inevitable and all they can do is grappling for personal happiness the best way they can. 

Other installments in the series / suggested reading order:"
Oh no you don't! Get that shit out of my eyes, I haven't even read the story yet and you're scheduling what I read next? A little presumptuous don't you think? This lady has it all planned out with the "step 1: write something I think is better than everyone else's step 2: money" shit. Well, Maria, why don't you focus more on the story than the marketing, eh?

That really is her problem. As I've said before, I wish people would write deep shit about our generation's wars. Not because I am interested in war stories, at all, but because I think they are an important part of finding our humanity blah blah. So I thought this was an okay story at first. It explores the homophobia and sexual frustration of an all male platoon as they go on long missions away from civilization. But I was let down when it became apparent it was all to sell more copies. It's pretty apparent from this passage:

"Still, it would be a great relief if the wannabe Italian male model would just get over his women obsessed pride and tell Hadenfeldt what he fucking wanted from him. Even if the colonel didn't feel the same (which Ty doubted) it would clear the air between them and they could all act normally again. Or as normal as life around Army guys could be. For all he cared the Don't Ask Don't Tell could go fuck itself, because when it came to a guy covering his back or saving his life he couldn't care less which way he swung. All that counted was steady aim and a cool head on their shoulders. And that they didn't hit on him because he liked women, thank you very much."

Did mention this is about Don't Ask, Don't Tell!? Now let's be clear there's nothing wrong with this message--except that it is bald-faced pandering. This isn't a story, it's just a Facebook post looking for likes, with the connected bonus that more likes means more ducats. You can even tell it's not genuine shit because of the obvious misunderstanding of human sexuality. "Hey, those guys are really good friends." "You're right. They must be secretly gay! Which I'm okay with, as long as they don't hit on me, because I only like dicks- NO! I MEAN I HATE VAGINAS! NO!!! I MEAN-"

So, unfortunately, that's all there is to this disappointing story.

Ratings:

Despite Not Having a Plot Still Managing to Have an Ending That Sort of Makes You Think: 2.534 out of 5 stars. So basically the whole plot is everyone thinking everyone else is a gay fag, then at the end it's cold so another soldier sleeps next to the main character for warmth and he gets an erection. That would be a sort of cognitive dissonance type ending, if the story had gone a little deeper than "Those fags are totally gay and just need to admit it." Especially with all the sexual abuse issues in the news lately, this story could have SO EASILY been so much more than jumping on the DADT bandwagon. But it wasn't.

Way Too Many Casually Dropped Names: 5 out of 5 hearts. Every line was like "McGalgin said to Johnson and Johnson that Cougar had left Maverick. And Jay thought, 'That's SO them, amirite, reader?'" And you find out later that that whole thing was just referring to two people and their million nicknames. This story is called fucking DYNAMICS for the group dynamics at play here, but we don't know who the fuck the group is because their name is just glossed over with almost no description as if we are intimately familiar with them. How the hell am I supposed to come to understand the intricate group dynamics if they aren't ever explained and the story ends in three pages?? GAH!

Probably Unintentional Accuracy About Soldiers: 4 out of 5 fags. Maybe I am being too critical, but also maybe the author is also more homophobic than she realizes (yes, women can be homophobic too). The characters were pretty spot on with the whole, "Hey, how long has that water been boiling?" "How should I know, what do I look like, a fucking cooking gay faggot!?" I am still back and forth on whether this is a negative stereotype for our armed forces or an important thing we should think about as a society. Probably the answer is you should BUY THE STORY AND TELL YOUR FRIENDS TO BUY IT RIGHT NOW ONLY ON AMAZON!

Overall: 3 out of 5 horseshoes. Yeah, the more I write the more mixed feelings I have. I don't really know how to explain it, I mean I should hate the story for my audience, but I can't help myself from liking parts of it, but then that makes me feel so... dirty and guilty but also just so... Oh... oh god, I have an erection.



If you would like to have an erection, you'll probably be disappointed when you visit amazon.com/author/a.c.blackhall