Review Tour & Giveaway: Escaping From Him by Liam Livings

Posted September 30, 2016 by Dale

Blurb:

Darryl’s on the run – from controlling boyfriend Chris, an air-conditioner called Dave (deceased), an intolerable, claustrophobic situation and a person he just can’t be any more. The trouble is, he doesn’t have a plan – or any money – and all he knows is he needs to get away from everything. That’s where a lucky lift to Glasgow comes in, which turns out to be just the beginning of a whole new life …

Publisher: Manifold Press
Buy Links: Amazon US / Amazon UK / Smashwords

My Review:

I.. don’t know where to start, because overall this was not a book for me and I didn’t really like it. Probably start with what I liked and what was good.
Escaping from Him started really good. I really liked Darryl and found him interesting. I was cheering for him the whole time he packed up his boyfriends stuff in trashbags and threw them down the stairs. Just because he could and he didn’t give a sh*t anymore about what his controlling arse of a boyfriend thought. I laughed when he destroyed Dave, the AC unit. And I was happy when he finally left it all to start a new life in Scotland. That was fun and I thought I’d really like the story. Up until that it was a solid 4 star book.

But when Ford arrives in Scotland we see his first day and then there’s a time jump of about 6 months. We don’t see him find his feet, settle in, meet new friends, do all those first times you have, when you move somewhere unknown. No, there was a time jump. And then afterwards we’re told about a few things that happened in those six months.
At that point I was like, okay, maybe it’s just an okay book. But then he meets the love interest and guess what? Yes! Another time jump – to them being six months into the relationship. We don’t see the first date, the first kiss; we don’t experience the awkwardness and worrying about things like what to wear, how to make a good impression. No, there’s a time jump! So basically we don’t know his boyfriend at all because we’re only told about how much in love they are, but dammit I want to experience it! I want to feel it!

The second time jump really threw me. The story is about how Darryl (he calls himself Ford) finds himself but sadly were just being told about it and the author doesn’t show it.
Add to that, that sometimes the story felt rushed (i.e. time jumps) and sometimes we’d get an in-detail description of something that didn’t feel like it did anything to move the story forward.

Although my biggest dislike (and I still could rant about this for hours!) was when the supposedly so in love supportive boyfriend invited the abusive ex to meet Ford again (WITHOUT HIM KNOWING) so that they could clear the air. Like “Tada!! There’s your ex. In your apartment! See, he’s really not that bad.”

That is an absolute no-go.
Absolutely NEVER is it okay to invite the abuser without the abused person knowing. Don’t think you should invite them when the know it beforehand but then at least there’s time to prepare yourself for it.

As I already mentioned, the reader gets told about things. But we don’t experience them, so that makes it really hard to connect with the story or the characters. I really didn’t get into it.

So yeah, while Escaping From Him starts strong it really goes downhill from there. Which is really sad because the story had potential and I liked the humor at the beginning. Overall though, a disappointing book. Maybe the next by this author will be better.

About the Author:

Liam Livings lives where east London ends and becomes Essex. He shares his house with his boyfriend and cat. He enjoys baking, cooking, classic cars and socialising with friends. He escapes from real life with a guilty pleasure book, cries at a sad, funny and camp film – and he’s been known to watch an awful lot of Gilmore Girls in the name of writing ‘research’.

One evening, flicking through the channels, he stumbled across the film, Saving Private Ryan, and it took twenty minutes of not seeing Goldie Hawn in an army uniform, before he realised it wasn’t actually the film, Private Benjamin.

He has written since he was a teenager, started writing with the hope of publication in 2011. His writing focuses on friendships, British humour, romance with plenty of sparkle.

When he’s not writing fiction he runs a manuscript appraisal service, provides marketing support to authors’ publishers and ghostwrites other people’s books.

Social Media:
Twitter @LiamLivings
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/liam.livings
Blog http://www.liamlivings.com/blog
Website www.liamlivings.com