I have read two beautiful poetry books by Christina Hart this year. From my experience, novels written by poets will gut you, since they are filled with poetic, raw emotion.
This one was no exception, Hart didn’t waste any sentences. She didn’t write in flowery words. She was direct and unsympathetic in her storytelling, she told it like it was. Alan’s life was like a train-wreck that you couldn’t look away from, both past and present.
Poor Alan, our protagonist, really can’t catch a break in this book. When his girlfriend hears that he cheated on her with a girl named Jenny, it sets off a chain of events that changes every life he touches throughout the entire story. Not always in great ways either. He’s a little bit of a bad guy, but it’s because he is trying so hard to be good. The harder he tries the worse his situation gets.
Alan is many things. He is a product of a shitty upbringing that included a dad that beat the crap out of him and abused his mother. He is the product some old fashioned child molesting that occurred right under shitty parents noses. I enjoy stories like this because it exposes predators and their methods used to ensnare their victims.
I couldn’t put this down. I truly felt for this man that just couldn’t get his s*** together. Hart did jump back and forth in his life a little, but it was in a very natural way that complemented the story line.
The title Synthetic Love is more than just Sabrina the sex doll from the blurb. It’s the feeling in Alan’s life that he feels with all the women that he seeks to love throughout his life, and that was truly heartbreaking for me to realize over and over again. All he wanted was love, but all these women that he was sleeping with were just fake feelings, a band-aid for his wounds he’d carried forever.
Great book, nice job, 5 heart-broken yet totally in love with this author stars.