Halfway there book review: One Night Stand

I've been reading One Night Stand for the past week right before I go to sleep. I don't quite know what to make out of it. On one hand, this book is clearly not War & Peace and therefore shouldn't be examined on a deeper level; but, on the other hand, sometimes these little stretches of reality irk me.

The stretch of reality with One Night Stand is that I really don't buy Derek's (the lead character) sanctimonous attitude.

Here's a fairly spoiler-free summary of what I've read so far: Derek is a 23 year old handsome, muscular (I think author Ben Tyler means muscular in the lean sense) aspiring actor in Los Angeles, working as a waiter. When the restaurant he works at suddenly shuts, Derek scrambles to find another source of income. In desperation he takes out an ad in a local gay magazine as a legitmate masseur. Derek stays firm in his refusual to give "happy endings." Eventually he meets up with Tom, a client who he does sleep with (because he wants to). Tom, in turn, introduces Derek to a movie star who wants to take Derek on as his toy boy. Derek reluctantly agrees.

I am majorly summarising things here, because there are pages and pages of Derek being all moral and what have you, which is just annoying. Likewise, there's this romance with his ex-coworker Juan that just seems to come out of nowhere. Not to mention, it's a bit unnerving how Juan still refers to Derek as "Boss."

Nonetheless, I am going to give this a shot and finish it to the end, because despite the shaky way to the middle, the road to the end might be much more satisfying.