{"id":946,"date":"2017-12-28T15:00:53","date_gmt":"2017-12-28T22:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/?p=946"},"modified":"2017-12-21T16:06:38","modified_gmt":"2017-12-21T23:06:38","slug":"book-a-natural-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2017\/12\/28\/book-a-natural-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"BOOK: A Natural (2017)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"AA Natural
\n<\/u><\/strong>Year: 2017
\nAuthor: Ross Raisin
\nLength: 386 pages<\/p>\n

***THIS BOOK WAS RECEIVED FROM A GOODREADS GIVEAWAY***<\/p>\n

This book was, without a doubt, the gayest book I\u2019ve ever read. Usually, I don\u2019t read books with LGBTQ+ themes, but the cover and title led me to believe it was about soccer (or, in this case, football). I am not against books with these themes, per se, as long as the characters are likable and relatable. It\u2019s just I would hope that Random House isn\u2019t merely publishing books with these themes to get \u201cautomatic\u201d sales from people who want to support the LGBTQ+ movement. Unfortunately, based on the weakness of the story in\u00a0A Natural<\/em>, I suspect this was the only reason a large publisher released it.<\/p>\n

For a book I thought was about football, actual instances of the sport being played collectively comprises perhaps 1% of the entire book. That\u2019s roughly 3.86 pages of football in a book about football players. If you\u2019re looking for tension and action on the pitch, you\u2019d be better off reading something like\u00a0The Rook Crew<\/a><\/em>\u00a0instead of this. So, instead of football, what does this book have in it? In a nutshell: sexual assault, rape, and homophobia. I would have hoped that a story about coming to terms with a young man\u2019s sexuality would have been more inspiring, but the undertone of the narrative certainly feels against the idea.<\/p>\n

Like I mentioned above, I could let most of this slide if the characters were interesting. Instead, we\u2019re left with a loner football player who gets in a relationship with someone involved with the team. I don\u2019t know why the main character decided to do this, as the characters are all pretty flat. On top of this, we have to follow a side-plot of a failed marriage included only for a minor (and predictable) plot point near the end. I was actually more taken aback by the sexual abuse that was allowed\/permitted as part of the team\u2019s \u201chazing\u201d than the gay sex scenes that lacked any description at all. By the end, nothing was resolved, and I felt unfulfilled. I honestly failed to see the point of this book, other than a cash grab.<\/p>\n

A boring book with boring characters playing a boring sport, I give\u00a0A Natural<\/em>\u00a01.5 stars out of 5.<\/p>\n

\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\"\u00a01\/2<\/strong><\/h1>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Natural Year: 2017 Author: Ross Raisin Length: 386 pages ***THIS BOOK WAS RECEIVED FROM A GOODREADS GIVEAWAY*** This book was, without a doubt, the gayest book I\u2019ve ever read. Usually, I don\u2019t read books with LGBTQ+ themes, but the cover and title led me to believe it was about soccer (or, in this case, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[236,54],"tags":[349,1064,55,1068,1065,1066,97,339,308,1067,8,1063,748],"class_list":["post-946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1-5-stars","category-book","tag-349","tag-a-natural","tag-book","tag-boring","tag-football","tag-gay","tag-giveaway","tag-goodreads","tag-goodreads-giveaway","tag-lgbtq","tag-review","tag-ross-raisin","tag-soccer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=946"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/946\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":947,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/946\/revisions\/947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}