reviews_and_ramblings | Shell Shocked by Angelia Sparrow and Naomi Brooks

For sure it’s not an easy book: Sparrow and Brooks decided to lay bare the reality of two men who barely make end’s meet every month; they are not exactly poor, but they are not far from it.

When they meet, Sean is a vet from Iraq who was severely injured: he has fake knees that allow him to walk, if the time is good, but also give him great pain; he has a retina problem he solves using special glasses when outside; he is not able to walk outside without risking a breakdown and each rumour reminds him of the front. With the social security helps, the drugs from the system and a side-job as erotic romance writer he is not good, but he can go on. After a few months of this life he is also able to think to a relationship and his target is Gabe, the cute boy in a wheelchair he meets at the clinic. Before he has never had the courage to talk to him but in a particular good day, he finds it. From that moment on Gabe becomes his anchor.

Gabe is a psychic card reader by phone and like Sean, he is able to maintain himself without saving nothing. He is extremely independent but when he meets Sean, probably he recognizes a soul mate. Yes, it’s true, it’s probably the disability that bonds them together, and it’s obviously more convenient for them to live together, it’s cheaper, but I don’t think that it’s only that. Sean needs someone to take care of, to make him feel confident, when to everyone else it’s obvious that he is the one to need a caretaker. Sean has a family, a family that probably would have helped him, but instead he is living alone; I think Sean ran way from that life since he is no more the same person; he is no more the next door good boy. Even being gay would have been difficult, let alone fall in love for a long haired psychic card reader who is also a pagan worshipper.

On the other hand, Gabe has never known what a real family means. Living with Sean is not a convenience, it’s a dream comes true, he has finally someone near him all the time. To the reader it could seem that it’s Gabe who hunts the nightmare away for Sean, but there are worst things happening by day that Gabe avoids being with Sean. While Sean’s story is presented to the reader since the first moment, Gabe’s ones remains hidden, like often happens with that type of trouble: Sean’s troubles are big but bare, everyone can see them, and maybe even jokes him for that, instead Gabe’s ones are more subdued and then more dangerous.

I like the development of the story, since it was not a boy meets boy and happily ever after, it was more a chronicle of all the steps they took to build their life together. Deciding to move in together was only the first step, but then they had to learn how to live together, how to take decision together, how to cope to adversities, big and small, together, how to fight each other together. Sean and Gabe are not building only a love relationship, they are tightening a bond that borders dangerously in dependency; I fear the moment they could be separated, I don’t think they would be able to survive.

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