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Today we are smashing us some blue berries! I've always been more of a raspberry person myself. His story is Under Your Influence.
TLDR; A quick-paced comedy/drama that is supposedly going to have LGBT romance at some point.
Characterization: Smashing! - Easily the best thing about this book is the characters. You don't need much to understand them and there isn't much explanation given about their backstories beyond what you immediately need to know because at the end of the day it is all about chemistry. There are two main characters and when you have one guy who is rich man-child, a playboy, a trouble magnet, and over-the-top drama queen, while the other guy is poor, naive/gullible, down-to-earth, and just trying to keep up with the former you have a hilarious chemistry. I had to put it down twice because I was giggling too hard. You don't even need plot, this could easily be a slice-of-life and it would be a sitcom like Friends.
I have to be picky though. One character has a 1% hint of gary sue reality-warping. Why is he the one picked to babysit the man-child out of all of hollywood/Los-Angelis why him, because it is never explained? Why is it that he has a 5 minute encounter with a bartender of 'meh' proportions and the bartender is singing his praises to his entire family? Why is he acting, and thinking, as if he knows the man-child for years and has history to be angry with when he hasn't known the guy for 5 minutes? Why is his character-growth losing the stutter and nervousness and acting in such a manner as if he has known the man-child for years by the end of the first day? Realistically it would take months, even at an accelerated pace, to build up that unspoken chemistry of knowing someone like the back of your hand and having history. Not 5 minutes or a few hours. These things are minor and didn't retract from the story, but still bugged me and gave me the sensation that reality was being warped to the character. Its not a strong sensation, I can easily live with it, esspecially as many comedies employ reality-warping, but the first question of "why him" would be good to be explored at some point.
Side Characters: Smashing! - The side characters are used well. When you need them, they are there and they make sense. When you don't need them, then they are not there. They help the story and plot and character dynamic at the points when they need to. At no point does it feel like there are side characters being forced on us, nor missing when you need them. Side characters are like surgical tools. Used for precision at just the right points, and this author nails that, and it feels so organic and fluid you don't really even notice.
Grammar: I was distracted - Didn't notice any grammar. Was too busy giggling.
World Building: Not needed, yet - Right now we are still in the stages of getting to know the characters and their internal conflicts and interactions. There is no world building as we are (outside of the man-child's perpetually 'high' perspective) in modern reality. For now this is fine and doesn't waste our time with information we dont need. But at some point there will be a necessity for external pressure and plot and influence on them to help generate plot, conflict, and hilarious interactions. So far as the plot and pacing goes, it may be relatively soon and the author seems to have a firm grasp of knowing when that is.
