Review: Dance With Me by Heidi Cullinan

An interesting take on the opposites attract trope with a dancer and an ex-football player but told in such a way that creates a beautiful and endearing story filled with two well-developed characters. I think what I liked the most about this book was although it is only 240 pages, I felt like by the end I truly knew the two main characters: Laurie and Ed. I read a lot of M/M genre books and so much of what I’ve been reading lately are books lacking in a well-developed story and strong individual characters. So often the books focus on just the sex that I tend to forget what they were even about after a few days. But that wasn’t the case with Dance With Me.

From Laurie, the former professional dancer who now teaches,  to Ed, a former football player with a career ending injury – the author couldn’t have come up with two different characters. Ed and Laurie are both trying to come to terms with how their lives have ended up. Ultimately it’s Ed’s infectious fun-loving personality that starts to break down the wall around Laurie, and the personal struggles they each go through individually and together cause them to eventually face their troubles and accept the truth along with accepting each other.

Again, such great character development and also I liked the fact we weren’t given a story where the character’s struggles are all wiped away at the end of the book. Laurie and Ed will each have to continue to overcome some obstacles in the future, but now they have each other to weather the storm.

I found this beautifully written and full of characters that came to life on the pages. I did have a couple of issues with some of Laurie’s struggles that I didn’t feel were as well flushed out and left me with some questions and some lack of understanding. However, overall I really enjoyed this book and could even see myself picking it up from time to time just to pay Ed a little visit.

Favorite quote:

This only made Laurie more furious. “I’m going home and sticking pins in my Ed voodoo doll.”

Ed grinned. It was boyish but wicked, and it did uncomfortable things to Laurie’s insides.

Rating: B
Dance With Me by Heidi Cullinan
July 26th 2011 by Loose Id
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