get out...get out...get out....

Do you remember that scene in Amityville Horror were the flies are buzzing all around saying, "Get out...get out...get out..."I do. It was creepy. That has nothing to do with this review. Well I guess there's a priest in Amityville and there's a priest in Out, but that's neither here now there.
Now then, one to the review.
Out is really bad. I think the title is so short because, deep inside, the author knew that it would be sinful to waste more ink to print more letters for a longer title. I also think that's why the book is so short. It's not the worst book ever. It's not anywhere near as horrible as WTF, Wintergirls or Sense of Urgency. It is just normal bad- not like those three- books that made me ask Jesus to take me Home just so I could stop reading them. This book has a pretty interesting premise. A young man starts questioning his faith and then questioning it even more when he finds out a pillar of the church is having an extra-marital affair. This would be a neat topic. Even without the affair part. People do struggle with their faith. Especially when it is one passed on to them from their parents and they are reaching that time in young adulthood when they start to think on their own. The affair thing would also be a good topic. How do you go and sit next to someone in church when you know they are doing something really bad. Well, the truth is, EVERYONE in church does bad stuff! I remember this from Dear Abby so I stopped worrying about so-called hypocrites at an early age. I'm a big time sinner in need of healing myself! Anyway, yeah, that would have been a good topic. Lastly the dude finds out that his younger brother, a really devote Catholic, is gay. So he is witness to his brother's pain as his brother is assaulted and as he also struggles to reconcile his sexuality with his faith. That's a good topic there. But heck, the author crams all of this into less than 135 pages! It does all of the topics a serious disservice. There's little character development except that I found it pretty easy to dislike the main character and pretty much all of the characters in such a short period of time. I would love to read a book about any of these topics, but this book just tried to do way too much in too little time. There's also this whole thing with the main character and his girlfriend and their almost love scenes and then the whole stern, totally not-understanding father thing going on. It was like one of those free books for the Kindle. They call them books and yeah, they are free but they are so so so short and they are obviously just teasers to get you to buy the whole story. The thing is, Out is trying to be the whole story and well, it just doesn't work.