Devlin’s father was an interested character, to say the least, and I am glad in the end that he learned his lesson.

I eagerly await book three and the likely points that will be addressed concerning Lee’s mother, Thanksgiving, and maybe a double date with a certain gay Football Player from Dev’s college days.

@Buck T
I agree. If not the whole emotional state and timing of the end, then the very last line really drives home that this is not an ending, it’s a pause. A short respite.

@Dimitri V
I tend to re-read emotionally heavy books, and I think you may find some new insight on a second pass. Much like you might rewind a movie if you were laughing or crying so hard you missed the next few lines or scene.

@hundredand
One of the things I’ve learned about writing is that making children sound believable is hard as hell. In regards to Dev and his teammates, my experience is that his dialogue is actually toned down, tamer, and more eloquent than locker room banter (thank God). Take a look at any professional athlete’s Twitter feed to get an idea of how this banter might actually play out.

Though Dev and Lee have issues between them, you’re right about much of the conflict coming from external characters. When I talk about those characters changing suddenly at the end of the story, it’s because their motivations and actions don’t seem consistent with their earlier selves. And that, unfortunately, keeps the end from being as convincingly tied up for me as it’s supposed to be.

I do think, however, that the ending is intended to be a happy one. What was revealed as the big conflict is resolved (if not very believably), everyone seems happy with everyone else, and their futures are looking up.

You’re absolutely correct that making one’s readers upset is a valid thing for a writer to do. If they can do that, it means they’ve written their characters well enough to make readers care about them. I haven’t read Thousand Leaves so I can’t compare it to Isolation Play, but the pain I experienced reading the latter felt so unnecessary; it was like watching a friend get beat up on a mall surveillance tape. Even if they recovered okay, I wouldn’t want to watch that happen to them.

… I should probably re-read the book before I analyze it too much further, in case I missed something that binds everything together and I look a fool for not having seen it.

Waterways sure did have its pain, too. After I read that book I was emotionally sore. But the pain and suffering Kory and Samaki went through led clearly, in my opinion, to them learning about themselves, each other, and what they really wanted. And at the climax of the book, the characters do the right things *because* of everything they went through.

In Isolation Play, though, I didn’t see as much connection. The characters suffer (and suffer some more) and in the end changes happen, but the changes were more a result of spontaneous character change; I didn’t feel that the conclusion naturally followed what preceded it. I hate to say it, but it felt to me as though the story was led to where the author wanted it to go, instead of flowing there on its own. I felt the similarly about Out of Position, but to be honest I wouldn’t have even noticed the slightly forced story arc in Isolation Play if I hadn’t experienced truly natural story flow from Kyell Gold already.

At some point (when I’m emotionally fortified for it) I’ll probably have to re-read Isolation Play to see what I missed the first time, if there’s elements that tie things together better than I noticed. But it won’t be an enjoyable trip.

The only other criticism I have (and this is probably just me) is some parts of the dialogue, mostly during Dev’s parts. The exchanges he has with his teammates feel forced and I found myself laughing out loud at some of the things they said. There was another scene in the middle of the novel between Lee and Gerrard’s son. The conversation that took place felt extremely awkward and drawn out. Of course, there was an important point made during that exchange, but, on a whole, it felt unrealistic. These are just minor complaints that probably don’t even matter. I loved the rest of the dialogue, especially the parts between Dev and Lee.

Overall, I really liked the book. I guess I was kind of expecting an extension of Out of Position, but Isolation Play is a very different novel then its predecessor. Knowing that there will be more to this story makes me feel better about the rushed ending. Now I am impatiently waiting for the third.

I agree with you completely on the book’s conclusion. It could have been much more satisfying if it had been longer and shifted more smoothly from the tone of the rest of the book, or felt like it were more connected to the events of the story.

And it wasn’t really explained why and how multiple characters could change so much, so quickly; as you say, that was hard to believe.

Thinking about things a bit more in retrospect, though still not entirely clearly as I’d only four and a half hours’ sleep last night, when writing my review I didn’t have a good grasp of what Dev and Lee were suffering *for*. But really, that’s entirely understandable. There were so many potential problems looming throughout (Dev’s job, Dev’s team, Dev’s family, Lee’s family, Lee’s job, and more) and it’s not clear until near the end which one the story’s about. So while reading I couldn’t pick out the primary conflict or see how their misery related to it, and it hurt to see them suffering so greatly without knowing why or to what end.

(As an aside I know I’ve used the word “suffering” a lot. In my fatigued state synonyms are hard to come by, and besides, it fits what happened to me and to them. Thinking about some scenes still shortens my breath.)

I don’t really know if my reaction to Isolation Play is due to shortcomings in the storytelling, myself, or some of both. I have tons of respect for Kyell Gold and his writing, how he creates characters and worlds that come to life so vividly in my mind, and his friends and editors obviously know far more about writing than I do. I can’t help thinking I missed things that would have made Isolation Play go down easier, as if I forgot to chew my food before swallowing. Perhaps I’m not all that good a reader after all?

If there are going to be two more books (and knowing Kyell Gold I don’t doubt it), right now I feel like I won’t want to read them. Curiosity about what happens next might compel me, as it did with this one, but I don’t know if I can take another emotional wringing like Isolation Play gave me. Characters need to suffer, yes, but as a reader I think it’s about damn time Dev and Lee got a carefree trip to an amusement park on Free Cake Day. After everything they went through, they deserve it. And frankly, so do we.

I do see the issues here. While there are a lot of huge up and downs, this time around a lot of the character conflict really isn’t so much between Dev and Lee when you look at it. There are moments here and there, but the bigger issue is actually with the external characters.

Quite frankly I didn’t think of this as really that happy of an ending… I don’t want to go too terribly far into it in case any silly fur is still reading and hasn’t finished yet (Really? Why?) but this ending is like the stalemate that ended WWI. Both sides realized that they couldn’t go on destroying themselves and each other, but they really didn’t resolve anything. There are still several closets worth of shoes to drop here.

And Dimitri, you’ve hit on the very reason that I was upset by the very idea of a sequel. I knew that things would not go well–could not go well and have a novel. In the end it didn’t get as bad as I feared (what, is this only the second-ok third novel where no one died?) but it didn’t have the same kind of high points, either. I didn’t know there’d be two more sequels, but I figured that this isn’t really the end. It’s something of the middle. Not that I find that particularly reassuring. Then again, while it might not be a place to revisit often, ‘upset’ is certainly a valid emotional place to take your reader. For example, I still haven’t been able to go back to re-read Kevin Frane’s Thousand Leaves. Doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth it at least once.

Something to keep in mind is that Dev and Lee’s story is still going. Gold has said there are two more books planned, so think of this as halftime.

That said, I tend to agree that the last few chapters seem to happen very fast. It’s actually my biggest criticism of the book. Characters go from furious to reconciled in such a short period of time that it becomes hard to believe. Considering that the ending is still in the middle of some larger plot arcs, I can see this happy ending getting immediately turned on its head in the third book.

First, let me say that Kyell Gold’s writing is amazing as always. Pacing, narration, his technique is practically flawless. (And you’d have to be a better person than me to find flaws.) Not to mention his vivid imagery that takes you right through the words on the page almost without seeing them. And my God, can he convey the emotions his characters go through. Not being a writer myself I can’t tell you how he does it, how another person’s prose can feel flat and distant while Mr. Gold’s affects my emotions almost more than reality. But it does.

Which, sadly, is the crux of why I did not enjoy this book. I can’t continue without spoiling somewhat, so anyone who hasn’t read it yet may want to stop here (why are you reading this thread, anyway?). But a vast majority of the story involves both Dev and Lee suffering one seemingly insufferable hardship after another. As an admittedly emotionally susceptible reader, this was hard to deal with. I ended more than one chapter hoping like heck that was the worst, only for the characters’ suffering to multiply on the next page.

Some of the blame is mine for getting too emotionally involved in fiction. Yeah, well, make reality as interesting as fiction and we’ll talk. (I’m kidding.) But I have to ask the question: why was I reading this? I went into it expecting to be entertained, but I’m not entertained by watching people suffer. Not those I care about. And Mr. Gold, bless him, writes such compelling characters I can’t help caring about them. Now I understand and agree with the assertion that a good story needs suffering and conflict; it can’t just be a magical romp of the main characters getting what they want without sacrifice. But, for me at least, the characters suffered so much I thought many times that the ending couldn’t possibly be worth it all.

And sadly, it really wasn’t. After nearly four hundred pages of what was, though sprinkled with humorous and heartwarming moments, primarily the characters suffering one misery after another, the conclusion of the story wraps everything up in–literally–fourteen pages. Though the characters learned and grew throughout the story I felt the ending happened too suddenly, and too completely, to be really believable. For example, although it was explained, I don’t really believe one character’s unwavering rock-solid position could be completely reversed by a single conversation.

I adore most of Kyell Gold’s writing not only for the fantastic characters, imagery, and storytelling, but for the fact that events flow naturally, as though the story documents things that really happened (or could have happened). But with Isolation Play, as with Out of Position, the story felt more manufactured to me, moving less smoothly toward a predetermined conclusion instead of unfolding organically. Was it a gripping story? Absolutely. The fact I’m posting this review at 3:30 AM speaks to that. But will I read it again? Given how much of the book left me tensed and even upset, for a conclusion that didn’t feel worth it, probably not. Characters need to suffer, yes, but a story needs to offer enough enjoyment for the readers to make it worthwhile. Someone could give you a blow-by-blow account of the removal of their diseased wisdom teeth, but while at the end they were better off than they started, it’s not necessarily a tale you want to hear.

Unless, I suppose, it involved a gay fox and tiger.