I Can See for Miles

By: Lisa Worrall

Narrated by: Chris Patton

After a kayaking accident took Josh Donald's sight, he's faced with learning to negotiate the world as a blind man. In short order, his boyfriend leaves him behind, making it clear he's not inclined to deal with special needs. Reeling from the blow, Josh flounders. In an attempt to help, Josh's friends take him to a camp for the blind, where he falls for the camp organizer, Charlie Cooper.

Charlie seems to feel the attraction too, but when a horse named Dottie pushes them into a hot first kiss, Charlie resists. He believes he's damaged goods, not boyfriend material. Since the accident, Josh has faced tough obstacles, but the most challenging hurdle of all may be getting Charlie to open up and take a chance on love.

©2013 Lisa Worrall (P)2014 Dreamspinner Press

A Big Sigh!

What did you like best about I Can See for Miles? What did you like least?

Most liked: pity wasn't part of the overall picture. I least liked some of the terminology and practices; e.g., "stick," when "cane," should've been used, and assisting the main character by grabbing his arm/elbow. Most blind people, myself included, abhor being guided that way. Simple physics: when I take your arm, I'm following a half step behind you, but when you take my arm, you're pushing me a half step in front of you. Do you see the problem with that?

If you’ve listened to books by Lisa Worrall before, how does this one compare?

N/A

Did the narration match the pace of the story?

For the most part.

Could you see I Can See for Miles being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?

No.

Any additional comments?

There are other authors; Andrew Grey being a prime example; who aren't fully familiar with disabilities, and misinform rather than educate non disabled readers. Write what you know, and not what you think you know!

A unique tale of blind love 💖

Any additional comments?

Josh and Charlie seemed to have been made for each other and it was wonderful to be apart of their journey of self discovery and how not even blindness can keep two people who are truly in love apart.

I honestly could not stand Josh's best friend! I loathed that character and especially at the lake accident. Ugh! I was ready to bash him over the head!!! Other than him every other character was a contribution to this sweet tale.

Fabulous narration, sweet story.

Hurt/Comfort and some Hope

Josh is an adrenalin junky who loses his sight while going kayaking with his then-boyfriend at night after drinking. Eight months later, no boyfriend, and he is finally coming round and ready to consider opening himself up to a new relationship.
Charlie Cooper runs a camp for the blind after his fight with cataracts lost him his dream job as an architect and his long time boyfriend. Bryan, the ex, also beat Charlie and tormented him for becoming blind, so Charlie is not looking for any sort of romantic involvement.
When Josh meets Charlie he is instantly attracted. So is Charlie, but he won’t admit it. With the help of matchmaking family members and friends, the two spend some time together the week Josh attends camp and they end up involved and in love. But it isn’t enough.
Josh is in a terrible accident and Charlie blames himself. Charlie is still not ready to accept his own rapidly deteriorating eyesight and feels that he can’t be there in the way Josh needs, so he pushes Josh away.
Fortunately the same matchmakers won’t let the two destroy themselves and a HEA ensues.

**
The author clearly did a lot of research, and the blindness and the camp are very well described and seem very accurate and real. I liked that some of the people were more and some were less accepting of their change in sight. Charlie, ironically, the man who tells the campers how much they can still do, though blind, fights his own blindness the most. He’s very human.
Josh is a bit more “superman” in his general outlook on life and on his blindness. He tackles everything head on and won’t take no for an answer. He’s a nice foil to Charlie’s prickly, paranoid, pessimism.
The secondary characters are nice, sometimes bawdy and funny, sometimes corny and sweet, but definitely entertaining.
I both loved and hated their quicky romance. I loved it because the boys were so good for each other and I really felt like – given enough time – it would have made sense for them to be together. What I didn’t like was the fact that it occurred over a week and they never really even spent that much time together but felt strongly enough for the “l” word. Since Charlie fought the attraction so hard, I found it disconcerting to see him go from “I’m not interested to I love you and can’t live without you” almost overnight.
The blindness issues were handled very realistically and I thought the navigating through all the different stages of blindness was well done.
I didn’t like the epilogue. Me, the queen of sap, the lover of epilogues, thought it was over the top. I was so satisfied by the ending I didn’t need the epilogue and I almost wish I hadn’t read it. I won’t give it away, but I don’t think it was necessary, and if you read/or listen to it, consider ignoring the epilogue. ☺
I really enjoyed the story and give it 4 of 5 hearts
Audio:
Chris Patton is new to me as far a narrators go, and he did a good job. He excels at the melodrama and when the scenes were tense and fraught with soap-opera type emotions, he rose to the fore. What I didn’t like was that level of tension was maintained throughout most of the book. There wasn’t a rise and fall, it was all “Oh no and what will happen next?” Mostly that fit the story, it was full of drama, but there were a few times when I thought the narrator could have backed off the drama a bit and it would have made the listening more enjoyable.
But overall I really enjoyed listening to the book, I liked his voice, the sound quality was good and I give it a 4 of 5 stars.

I would definitely recommend the book and the narrator and give them an overall of 4 of 5 stars.

Overall Impression:

4.0 I really liked it

Super sweet

This is a great comfort read. This is the story of two men coming to terms with losing their sight in different ways. Josh lost his sight in an accident and with the help of two amazing friends, comes to a camp for the blind and meets Charlie, the camp director. Charlie's sight is deteriorating and he is faced with seeing (no pun intended) if he can practice what he preaches to his campers. Most of the book is really slow and sweet, but the last 25% is very emotional and the narrator does a great job conveying that emotion. He does a great job throughout the book, Worth a credit.

Too many issues for me

Any additional comments?

I loved the premise of this story - two guys with similar disabilities finding love in spite of the things that hold them back. Should have been great.
However.
As an avid MM romance reader, I couldn't connect with either of the main characters. The expression "chicks with d*cks" gets thrown around from time to time, but even that doesn't work in this situation. It's offensive to chicks. I have never met a guy in my life: straight, gay, or otherwise, who acts like the MCs in this story. They emote EVERYTHING. No feeling can go unexpressed. The purple prose is excruciating.
What annoyed me the most is that with a LOT of editing (I can't blame Dreamspinner Press for this one, the story needed a rewrite more than an editor) it could have been good. The characters were well rounded, the plot moved along at a decent enough pace. It was just so contrived. Painful to listen to, despite the fair effort of the narrator.
Give this one a miss.

Had some MAJOR issues with this one

4 stars for the narration, 1.5 stars for the story, I can't give more than 2.5 stars overall.

I have to start my review with a rant. Authors, don't put false medical information in a book. It is pretty easy to fact check, and when you get a reader with medical knowledge, it may set them off when they read a story with medical information that is so far off base.

Charlie Cooper is going blind, slowly overtime. Now, the author of the story says that it is due to reoccurring cataracts. This is an impossibility. Because a cataract is a clouding of the natural lens, and cataract surgery entails removal of the natural lens, a cataract cannot come back after surgery. It takes only a moment to figure this information out online. Now, there are many other ailments that cause blindness or vision impairment, so why the author chose to not fully research vision impairment is beyond me. Grrrrrrrrrr!!!!!

To top it off, this story features two of my biggest pet peeves: Instalove and "I'm breaking up with you because I'm doing what's best for you." Honestly, unless it's a shifter/mating story, I don't want to see instalove ever again. I mean it. And the "break-up to do you good" plot device just makes me want to RAGE. So tired, so irritating.

Now, the story did have lots of nice features. It is sweet, and there is something very satisfying about two men with disabilities finding each other. However, the negatives far out way any good, in my option.

The narrator of this audiobook, Chris Patton, is one of my favorites from his narration of the highly addictive Adrien English series (Fatal Shadows). However, his narration here was not quite as strong, without as diverse a range of voices and less passion. I'm not sure if it was because of the material, but I wasn't as moved by him, though his performance was the only thing that got me through this story.

Totally irked me, I can't recommend.

**Copy provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review**