Review of Hard Journey of the Heart: Jesse's Story

[Michael Jerry_]

[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Hard Journey of the Heart: Jesse's Story" by Mark Zullo.]

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4 out of 4 stars

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Besides being an author, Mark Zullo is a photographer and musician, so he has a lot going for him. However, I’m mostly excited that he is working on the next book in his fictional series because Hard Journey of the Heart: Jesse’s Story is a fantastic book. I cannot wait to see what Mark gives us next.

Hard Journey of the Heart: Jesse’s Story is the story of a man called Jesse and the ups and downs of his love life. This book is filled with exhilarating escapades of Jesse and his various lovers and the struggles he faced in each relationship. Jesse isn’t comfortable with people knowing about his love for other men, and he’s very possessive of his lovers, even though he’s willing to jump into bed with other men. These attributes lead to his constant need to try to understand his sexuality and himself. Along the way, we see Jesse develop as he navigates this wasteland called love.

In this book, Mark Zullo takes us back and forth on a journey through time. The author shows us parts of Jesse’s life, and in each chapter, we see a snippet of Jesse’s life from a different year. This makes the plot distorted, but it is intentional and marvelously done. It forces the reader to rearrange the plot in their mind, and I enjoyed trying to figure out the chronological order of events in the plot. For example, we begin the book with 23-years-old Jesse on a trip with Carlos and victor, but we begin the second chapter with 37-years-old Jesse, and the book goes on like this till the end.

Mark is a bold writer who doesn’t include unnecessary things when writing. He kept the dialogue simple, and it fits perfectly with the slew of dynamic characters he introduces us to. This book has a moderate and easy-going pace, but the pace gets faster whenever Jesse is sexually engaged. It didn’t have a lot of suspense, but it made up for that with unpredictability. Sometimes, the sex scenes seemed excessive, but as I read on, I came to understand that these are fantasies people have, and the pictures of these fantasies were painted very well.

I wish the author translated the parts where Spanish was spoken, but this wasn’t a problem for me because I still managed to understand what they were saying. I enjoyed reading this book, so I rate it 4 out of 4 stars. I didn’t hate anything about this book, and I believe this book received exceptional editing. The storyline was wonderful, and the writing style was so good that I look forward to reading more from Mark Zullo. I recommend this book to adults over the age of 18 who identify as members of the LGBTQ+ community but aren’t sure of themselves yet. I believe there is something to learn from Jesse’s story, and as long as you aren’t homophobic, you will enjoy reading this book.

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Hard Journey of the Heart: Jesse's Story
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon

[Muggu]

Stories like Jesse are much need for the society everthing must be known to everyone so that is the only way to teach people nothing differs from eachother

[Chinaza Nnabuenyi]

Like Jesse, most of our love life are certainly not a sweet one. The author was good in telling us this part of a man's life. I can't wait to read this book.

[Pearl Thomas]

I like the fact that the pacing of the book gets faster in erotic scenes, complementing the characters' internal drive and passion. Great review, I appreciate you writing a little something about the author as well.

[Recee Ann]

This book will surely help those who are trying to discover their sexuality, as they make might be a little confused at the start. The writer like anyone seems like a very passionate person with an innate desire that needs to be satisfied. It's a really nice book. Nice review!

[Gabriella1997]

It's very important to discover your sexuality, I love the sexual aspect of this book, beautiful review.

[Uchechukwu Okereke]

I think the book cover correctly depicts the content and lends a sense of vicariousness to this book. That was well done.