Rough Road to Happiness Book

It's easy to like, and love, an hot macho man but caring Marine, not so easy to love him when he shows you his human (not so macho) side, and that he, as a man, make mistakes.

If David has to be sincere with himself, the wonderful night he shared with a stranger Marine, Bud, was only that, a one night stand, and nothing more. But David fell in love at first sight, and when Bud came back to him, he was unable to say no. So is Bud's entirely fault when their relationship took a wrong turn? Truth be told, even after their second night together Bud tried to sneak out without being noticed, so it's not that he has given many signs to David that he wanted a long-lasting relationship. Now don't get me wrong, from my words it appears as if Bud is a completely bastard who takes advantage of David who was too much in love to be reasonable. On the contrary, I think Bud is maybe as much as weak as David, above all when you are speaking of true feelings; Bud is a fighter, a good soldier, but he was a foster child without foundations while growing up, and so I think he is a bit "damaged" on an emotional level: he felt the need to bind himself with the wrong person too soon and too young, and now that binding is preventing him to enjoy his love story with David.

But despite the good and bad, Bud is a ray of light in David's life, and in a way, it's better to have loved and lost than to have not loved at all. And again I don't think I will spoil you too much if I'm saying that this is an happily ever after story, after all the author decided to use as a prologue something that to me sounded very much like an epilogue, and so, reading the book, I was sure that I was heading towards an end that I would have liked.

In comparison to other stories about soldiers, and in particular Marine, I noticed that these men cry a lot; that is not something I have never found, they reminded me a bit some characters of Bobby Michaels, and knowing how much that author loves Marine, in novels and real life, I have no doubt that the description done by Drew Hunt is true, or at least for some of these men. And as in Bobby Michaels' novels (that if my friends don't remember, I like a lot), these men have sex that is down to earth, very physical and graphically detailed, again another bit of contrast with the emotional turn they sometime have.

Freaking weird book.
buck is alternately a marine or in the navy;
the author seems to be oddly bigoted;
the entire foster system is described as abusive and neglectful;
buck is a shithead and david is stereotypically insecure;
and, of course! there's an evil wife.
THEN david and buck decide to raise buck's child (from infancy) together and the child calls david 'uncle david' while david refers to him as his nephew. um.