I received this book for free from in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Eye of the Beholder by Elissa Gabrielle
Jerusalem “Jay” Jones is an Iraq War soldier has been injured in the line of duty, which has resulted in him being placed in a Veteran’s hospital. Not only is he suffering pain physically, but he is also broken mentally. He has no family besides a childhood friend that he calls brother. Jay’s mother died suddenly when he was a child, and his father killed when he was twelve-years-old. Leaving him and his sibling in foster care.
Jill Lopes a nurse at the Veterans hospital that genuinely loves caring for her patients. She’s the type of nurse that even when she has an off day, she is calling in to check on her patients. Her past is ultimately what decided her career as a nurse. When she meets her new patient Jay, and she notices that he is not only in physical pain but slipping into a depressed state, she refuses to let him feel sorry for himself, and while he is in her care, she slowly brings him back to life with music and poetry.
Eye of the Beholder by Elissa Gabrielle is a story about love and trying to move forward from past hurts. After finishing the book, I was curious to know what genre this book was listed under since it the story revolves partly around Christianity, by the constant use ‘God’ and some scripture. There were quite a few good quotes throughout the book that I liked. The other part of the story is romance, laced with erotica – I say laced because there are only a few scenes that are straight out sex. When I looked the book up, it’s labeled as ‘romance’ and ‘erotica.’ It is confusing because when you’re first reading this, you think you’re getting a Christian fiction story then it switches. Which brings me to the fact that throughout the book there were multiple things that contradict themselves. For example: Jill supposedly introduces Jay to Jazz and poetry, but yet the contradiction arises that he grew up listening to it so he should have already known who Coltrane and Davis were. Then there’s a part in the book where Jay’s father acted as a huge part of his friend’s upbringing even when he got older, assisting even in discussing colleges, but there is no clear indication when that would have been considering the father died when Jay was twelve-years-old.
There are at least three other inconsistencies within the story as well. At times the story gets confusing because there is no clear indication when the character is reminiscing on something from the past, such as maybe putting the font in italics -which near the end of the book I noticed was done but throughout was not. The same thing with the poetry throughout the book, there is nothing that makes it stand out such as the type in the book, from the actual story. The character development was weak due to the fact that when one character thought one thing in one chapter, the other character seemed to be thinking the same thing (exact wording) in the next chapter. The constant use of ‘baby’ in damn near every sentence was extremely annoying.
The storyline lacks in detail, things that should have been were not. The story just ends with a bombshell, and that’s it. There are simple grammatical errors and formatting that could have easily of been fixed that were not. Thus the reason for the 2.5 stars.
Reviewed by: Leona R.
