Clear Cut

Clear Cut

by Alexa Snow

Environmentalist Carter arrives at a logging site to interview modern day loggers for his book. While he's anti-clear cutting, he finds he likes most of the loggers well enough. In fact he gets along with pretty much everyone but foreman Nate, who takes an instant dislike to him. They constantly butt heads, grating on each other at every opportunity. There's chemistry there, especially of the sexual kind, but both of them fight it as hard as they can. When a logger is injured in an accident and they're forced to work together to save him, though, Carter starts to realize Nate is just a guy doing his job. In fact, he starts to question his purpose at the logging camp in the first place. Can these two hot-headed guys set pride aside and make it work?

Genres: M M Romance

102 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 11, 2006

About the author

Alexa Snow is an emotional person who appreciates practicality in others. She's prone to crying at inconvenient times, drinking too much coffee, and staying up too late playing with words (either reading or writing.) A background of schooling she wasn't all that interested in resulted in a Bachelor's degree in Sociology and a vague sense of wasted time. Alexa lives in a tiny old house in New England with her husband, young son, and a small collection of pets.

Reviews

[Kassa · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was first published several years ago before the publisher changed their pricing policy so it stands at $5.95 for 100 pages. Given the less than stellar quality of this book, that’s incredibly steep and I wouldn’t recommend spending so much money with so little return. Problems with this book stem from the poor writing, artificial tension, and stereotypical characters before we get into the telegraphed and obvious plot. The premise itself is a classic one but the author fails to inject a fresh and interesting perspective, instead using tired tropes and awkward created tension to drive the story. As several of the themes are ones I’m intimately familiar with both in books and reality, this story was a failure of imagination and execution.

The concept is that environmentalist and vegetarian Carter is writing a book about the evils of logging and wants the human perspective from the evil-doers, the loggers. Classically, Carter begins to realize these are not horrible men but merely men trying to make a living and falls for the antagonistic foreman, thus eliminating Carter’s desire to write his book. It’s not terribly inventive or new, but the worst sin comes from the obvious and telegraphed actions throughout the book. From the protesters to the various accidents that happen and even to the sex scenes between Carter and Nate, there is not a single action that is not transparent and predictable. The tension and dramatic arguments are awkward without real emotion and meaning from either man.

The plot moves along with the main focus being Carter and Nate and their chemistry and dislike for each other. To create opportunities for these two to interact, the author throws in a variety or circumstances, each more predictable and unsuccessful than the previous. Carter and Nate’s attraction was awkward from the beginning to the end where their announcements of love felt hollow and totally unbelievable. Carter is an idealist that realized he was gay while being married to a woman he was in love with. Deciding that he no longer sexually wanted his wife, he supposedly changes his entire life but really he takes a new apartment and tries to write a book versus previous articles. Carter is a weak character from the start due to his clear stereotyping of a vegetarian, environmentalist who is sick at the sight of cooked meat but falls in love with the rough, tough, meat swilling foreman. The author attempts to give Carter strength but falls down with Carter’s repeated trips into guilt over events that had nothing to do with him.

Nate is not much better as he’s given no depth and no additional purpose other than a single-minded laborer working hard to do his job with good co-workers. His early antagonism may be understandable but he continues to harass Carter for no real reason other than to show he’s a tough, antagonistic man. This is clear but something more to his character is needed if even attempting to fully develop him. Nate is shown as slowly warming up to Carter and being baffled why he cares but never shows any real emotion and the attempts to force Nate into caring about Carter and his drama felt artificial and awkward. In the end, these two men had no reason to fall in love despite sex they both seemed happy with but neither did they have a reason to hate each other. All their tension and subsequent happy ending was fabricated and lifeless.

I could go on about other problems but I think this is enough to hit the main highlights. I can’t say I enjoyed reading this book even with the happy ending as nothing rang with a fresh authenticity. This story reads like an antiquated idea of romance using stereotypes and tropes instead of creative writing. Unfortunately there were also editing problems as well as staid prose which didn’t help the reading of the story. Add in the bloated price for a mere 100 pages and I can’t recommend this story on any level sadly.

[Keitorin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is basically just me rambling about my impressions and musings, sorry. :P

I started in on this book having pretty much no idea what it was going to be about, and I'm glad I did. It was really fun watching everything unfold. I had next to no knowledge about environmentalists or loggers before I started. I had also never read an M/M book where the guys were so antagonistic towards each other. It was interesting to read Carter start out polite, but after meeting Nate, falling into the pattern of antagonism. In real life, I'd hate to see that kind of relationship, but I found it really interesting here. Nate brought out the worst in Carter, but at the same time it made Carter think about things he'd been struggling with. As well, Carter made Nate less of an asshole. Sometimes. XD

That's another thing. I'm not sure I've ever read a character quite like Nate. I struggled for a while to get an image in my head of him. I kept imagining the stereotypical hick. As the story went on, I got a better feel for him. I still would have liked to know a bit more about his past - such as how he got into the logging business. As for Carter, I'd have liked to have learned a bit more about him and Jesse.

I really liked the way the switching point of views worked. It worked so seamlessly that I didn't notice it until I was almost done. Another thing I liked was the character's individual ways of fidgeting. Carter was always fidgeting with his hands, tapping them against something, ripping paper up, and Nate with his compulsion to have his cigarette in his hand even though he'd already discarded it. I think it's pretty telling of their emotions, and I can emphasize with the tics.

Lastly, I loved the Star Trek reference towards the end, because I am a huge geek. =P

I'm glad that Nate changed in his attitude about him and Carter, yet he was still himself. Instead of using just words, his feelings were shown through actions.

And now for things that I was left wanting:

I was sad that Carter didn't get to write his book, because I felt that he could really do something with it to show both sides of the coin without lauding one over the other. Just presenting both sides and letting the reader decide their opinion. I'm hoping that that's the new book deal Nate got Edward to give him.

Something that worried me about the end was about Nate being in the closet. He mentioned that he could never tell his parents or the guys - the very idea scared him. With Carter moving into a house with him, he's going to have to face it eventually.

Which leads me to another thing: logging jobs can last for a few years at a time. Nate specifically set up the cabin so that his workers didn't have to go between there and home every night. They could stay there and go home to their families on the weekend. So is that what Nate's planning to do with Carter? Also, how is Carter going to deal with food situations? They won't exactly be able to share meals together unless Nate starts trying some of Carter's vegetarian meals.

Edit: Only just noticed that there is a sequel! =D

[Rie · Rating 3 out of 5]

*3.25

The story is well written, and the plot is good. But I don't know why I can't connect to the character and their relationship. It might not be insta-love or insta-lust (which I rarely like), but the writer still can't convince me that their love is real. Maybe it is also because I prefer friend to lover story instead of enemy to lover (But I love Drarry fanfic lol).

[lorena boyd · Rating 4 out of 5]

logger talk and sex but actually a pretty good book.

[OkayKim · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5