Review: Clear Cut by Alexa Snow

This book's a bit of an oldie, having been released in 2005.  It's one of those books I may have passed by and never read at all were it not for the fact that TQ has just re-released the follow on short Back Cut (as one of those 'classic' shots) and I picked up the short for review at Brief Encounters reviews, unaware it was a follow on.  Of course, once I discovered there was a prior book, I then had to read it, hence the reason why I picked up and read this book

The premise had real promise.  Environmentalist, Carter, is writing a book about the logging industry and the harm it does to the environment.  In order to get more dirt on the loggers he arranges to go to Oregon and spend a month with a group of loggers.  He's hoping to get their side of things and hopefully show them to be a bunch of selfish, money grabbing men who care nothing for the environment.  Whilst there he meets Nate, the manager of the site (or side as the loggers call it).  Nate hates him, and is opposite to him in every way.  Despite this, circumstances bring the two men together and Carter finds that things aren't as clear cut as he used to think.

The initial idea was really good. I like opposites attract stories and was looking forward to seeing the initial antagonism between the pair move into attraction and more.  Unfortunately, the story was just a little too all over the place in terms of themes, ideas and characterisation and this prevented me from being fully immersed in the story or the characters.  The story is told in alternating third person points of view of Nate and Carter.  On the whole, this worked well and allowed me to see the feelings of both men.  Out of the pair my sympathies ran mostly with Carter as he tries to get to know the loggers and begins to realise that these men are not the monsters he first believed.  This change is perhaps the part of the book which worked best.  Other parts of Carter were not done quite as well.  He carries a lot of emotional baggage, from the circumstances surrounding his divorce to the relationship with his family to his past as an 'eco-warrior'.  Because the heroes have such great difficulty in communicating with each other, these problems and issues are never really fully explored within the relationship dynamic which led to the vague feeling that Carter was a troubled man but nothing else really beyond that.

If Carter isn't fully explored as a character, then Nate is even less well realised.  He spends most of the book in a bad temper, grouching to himself, being rude and obnoxious to Carter and generally being unpleasant.  We never really find out anything else about Nate other than he's a logger and he resents Carter at first.  The change in his feelings towards Carter just happens without any real soul searching on Nate's part.  This meant that I never really understood what it was about Carter than Nate liked.  They begin the book as such opposites and yet nothing about Nate really changes by the end.  I also found it hard to understand why Carter would be attracted to a man who so obviously hates him.  There wasn't even much in terms of sexual tension or charge between them - or rather we are told that they find each other attractive, but I never really 'felt' it, if you see what I mean, as there seemed to be little or no chemistry between them.  Nor did I believe it when the men claimed to have developed feelings for each other.  This meant that I wasn't especially hopeful for a happy ending for these guys.

Having said that, the book wasn't all bad.  I thought the author did a good job of showing the dangers of the logging industry as well as the views of those who campaign against it.  Much of this was shown through the secondary characters of the other loggers.  The story wasn't dull by any means, it skipped along at a good pace and had some great action sequences.  My problem lies solely in that I just didn't believe the romance and as a result it left me feeling flat.

I've dithered about what grade to give this book and in the end I've gone for 'Poor', not because the writing is terrible, or that the ideas were bad, just that the romance was such a tremendous flop for me that I don't think I can recommend it.  However, I am only one reader out of many and there may be others who enjoyed this a lot more than I did.

Buy this book HERE.