Review of Fighting the Flames Within by Casey Morales

I got a copy of this mm romance as an ARC and am leaving my honest review. I was surprised to find this book was set in Atlanta, a city I am familiar with. However, I found descriptions of Atlanta and the way the characters talk about living in Atlanta to be unrealistic and immersion breaking.

How Do People Talk About Living in Atlanta?

People who live in Atlanta would never say “Atlanta” is where they live. Atlanta is an enormous city plagued by urban sprawl, so it now encompasses an area that was once hundreds if not thousands of disparate communities.

People within the broader city of Atlanta will be more likely to say the county they live in, like Cobb or Gwinnett. They might also give the smaller municipality where they actually live, like Chamblee or Decatur.

ITP/OTP

Another big distinction is ITP or OTP, Inside / Outside the Perimeter (I-285). Those who live ITP view going OTP as going into the vast wilderness. While people OTP see going ITP as going into the City like one would travel from Hoboken to Manhattan and say that they are going “to the City.”

The author at one point states something like ‘Dane lives in Atlanta just east of I-85’. Do they have any conception of just how broad a statement that is? The area that vague description encompasses that could still be said to be “in Atlanta” is very large.

Atlanta is Large

From a brief estimate, traveling from Suwannee to Fairburn is around 55 miles and would take over an hour with minimal traffic. Below is a quick Google Map screenshot.

So a statement like “just off 85 in Atlanta” could be talking about 85 South of Atlanta, like Riverdale, or College Park, or it could be within Atlanta, like Decatur, or it could be north of Atlanta, like in Lilburn or Buford. The huge disparity in those neighborhoods, and that’s just a few examples, cannot be overlooked.

In summary, Atlanta is HUGE. And I think that if choosing to write about an actual place, one should talk about that place in a realistic way and the way that people who live in that area actually talk. Maybe that’s being nitpicky. But it sort of broke the spell for me.

Beyond the Nitpicking

Beyond that, I didn’t find the characters themselves to be realistic, mature, or very likeable. I feel like that sort of breakup would be final, too, in the real world. I don’t see any coming back together. And maybe Dane felt that way too, because he all of a sudden couldn’t control his boners and thought about doing it with everyone. But hey, I don’t know… with the way he talked about his appendage in the 3rd person…

Gag.

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