AIKEN'S NOTES: I thoroughly enjoyed this tag-team approach to critiquing In a Brother's Eyes: the Brant McLachlan Story. My novels have received positive reactions from both male and female readers, which is always an important goal of mine. If you doubt whether a football book is something you would enjoy, or if you're not sure that love stories are the genre for you, be sure to read the following blog!
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Not Just Another Football Book
My husband, David, grew up in northern Alabama. To say he is a sports junkie is an understatement! He is obsessed with all sports, but his favorite has always been football. When his younger sister showed up at our house in New York reading a book with a football field on the cover, David was immediately curious. He borrowed her book that night and knocked it out in a couple of hours. The next morning over breakfast, he told me I should read it too. I laughed! As David enjoys spending hours reading about the history of his favorite teams, I doubted I was interested in any new
book he had discovered.Then my young sister-in-law began chiming in about what she enjoyed about the book. My interest was sparked! Was I hearing her right? Was it possible that my husband was gushing over a LOVE STORY? Surly this was just another football book talking about how the favorite team wins the big game, otherwise, my husband would not be interested. I picked up the book and read the back cover, ready to dismiss the notion of reading it. Instantly, I was hooked! In a Brothers' Eyes had enough football action for my husband and a love story that we could both get behind. It wasn't sappy or overdone; it was honest and real. The balance of football and other aspects of life and love made the book an easy read that I simply could not put down. I fell in love with Brant McLachlan, and so did my husband! Haha!
-Amy
My wife, Amy, has always been in to chick flicks. When we were dating, I had to sit through dozens of ridiculous movies at the theater, all of which ended with the leading man and his leading lady discovering their love for each other after an epic struggle that leads to the obvious. In the end, everything is wrapped up in a pretty package with a nice romantic bow that leaves all the ladies wiping tears away, swept up in the romance of it all as though they didn't know how it would end all along. They are the kind of movies Amy likes and the sort of books she likes to read. Me, I'm a sports guy, and I don't read much. I generally stick to books about the tradition of football at the University of Alabama and occasionally thumb through an autobiography of an athlete or political figure.
I was roped into reading In a Brother's Eyes: the Brant McLachlan Story based on the cover, then I couldn't put it down! I read it straight through in one sitting, finding myself rooting for Brant on the football field and off. To any guy who reads the back cover and dismisses the book based on the mention of true love that makes it sound like typical chick lit, I caution you to give this book a chance. The love story is not overdone and easy to relate to, and, unlike most chick lit, the love story is not only one between a guy and his girl. This is the story of a boy who loves a game and a town who loves an athlete. It is a story about bothers bonded by a game and a lifetime of shared memories. It is a love story of a father and coach who loves his wife and his four sons. It's a book I am proud to say I enjoyed and a book I would recommend to the guys I went to college with and the women in my wife's bible study group with equal confidence that they would find themselves wrapped up in the story of Brant McLachlan and his hometown.
-David
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*Submitted by David, a 2003 University of Alabama graduate who works as a marketing executive in New York City and his wife, Amy, a stay-at-home mom raising their two children.
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