Eli Easton ”Puzzle me this”

When i’m checking books and deciding what to read, i’m searching for interesting stories and interesting characters. If i chose to read romantic book, i don’t care to read about millionaire and plain, clumsy ”not like other girls” snowflake for the 100th time. I want something i haven’t seen 10 times in other books. So – of course i will take the book where characters meet because of crossword puzzles :). So – Eli Easton ”Puzzle me this”.

Luke designs computer games. He works from home and walks his dog every day. He has no idea that someone is watching him and crushing on him. He has no idea until he finds a newspaper on his doorstep. That newspaper contains usual crossword puzzle – it’s nothing surprising… until Luke understands that there is message for him in the answers. Alex is also working from home. He makes crossword puzzles for newspapers and has been watching Luke for a while. Alex is too shy to actually talk to Luke eye to eye. He is also in wheelchair, so he can’t go into the woods where Luke walks his dog, to meet him there. So, he choses crossword puzzle…. when Luke decodes it and they finally meet eye to eye… a beautiful story begins. It’s nice, romantic until reality reminds about itself and then the only question that remains, is – is this love real and for forever?

This was a cute story. Easy and fast read. Both guys were likable, nice, good guys. When Luke started to doubt their future and think about what it actually means, to be with someone in chair, for a minute i thought that he is a dick. Sorry. But then again – he wasn’t. All those things he thought about – they were not born in thin air, without any reason. It was all rooted in their real situation and i think i would think about the same things in his situation. It all feels a bit dickish at the beginning, but as it goes on – i understood him. A lot of moments were pretty realistic. Like i kinda agree with Alex when he said, that a lot of people doesn’t see guys(and girls too) in wheelchairs as sexual beings who also want to have sex, to be intimate, touched, desired. Like that chair automatically takes away desires and they don’t think about sex etc. But they want the same things as people who can walk and that is normal. Chair doesn’t mean anything. I also liked how Alex was showed supportive to Luke when Luke wanted to do something that Alex couldn’t because of his chair. He said to Luke that he can go and do it. I liked that he was not trying to hold back Luke just because he can’t go. The fact that Luke later didn’t want to be anywhere Alex can’t be too, is a different story and his choice. I just liked the fact that there was a choice. It wasn’t made like – if Alex can’t go, he makes Luke not go too. No. Luke could go if he wanted. Alex supported him and just did his own things at that time.

I personally think, that this book would have been really, really good if it would have been classical 250 pages and not just 90 pages. Just because 250 pages would give more time for relationship to bloom a bit slower, maybe few more crossword puzzles before they meet face to face. Also – it would mean more time and pages for character development and more time to show serious themes(like Luke’s family situation which impacted him and his feelings so much too) and how characters deal with them. I mean – this story was overall nice and i really liked both guys and main idea of how they met. This was nice read but 250 pages… it would have been even better.

I’m obsessing over details, so… for me personally… i didn’t understand why there was that ”sucking my own dick” talk. I mean – it was weird and the thing was, he didn’t even end up sucking it. There was no scene with him doing it. It was just like a weird, unnecessary fact to know about Alex. I could have lived without that moment. And also(and this is no just about this book but so many others) – why authors don’t just say that he had a big dick? Why that dick has to be called Godzilla, Empire state building, leaking faucet(this was not in this book. It’s from other book i read a while ago but i’m still weirded out, that someone though calling dick that is sexy… all it was – it made me think about toilet and peeing.)? And in Alex’s case it felt like his dick was was to his knees – that’s how godzillish it was. For me all these anacondas, godzillas, gigantic lollipops, light sabers sounds weird… But as i said – i obsess over details. Good and bad. So – i guess a lot of people would not even notice these things.