St-St-Stuffed follows the story of Karl and Paul, a bully and the one he bullies in elementary school, sometime in their late twenties one day while Karl is working at a food stall. Being pretty much homeless and jobless, Karl answers an ad for a position as a "Girl Friday" (aka nanny), not knowing that it was for Paul and his son Charlie. Being the bigger man and wanting to forgive and not discriminate, Paul hires Karl. From there, the story follows their every-day lives as they drift closer to one another.
***SLIGHT SPOILERS AHEAD***
To me, the characters were fairly well developed-- they're all very three-dimensional; they hate, they love, they cry, and they forgive. Karl, having been a troubled soul throughout his youth and acting on his aggression as a bully in hopes of garnering his parents' affections, has been trying to live a more honest life ever since being saved by his grandfather. He is, like everybody else, fundamentally flawed-- he makes mistakes like everybody else and regrets them, wanting desperately to show Paul that he is sorry for the way he's treated him in the past, but doesn't dwell on the "what if's" if he hadn't done what he did, and instead chooses to focus on the present and the future, and what he can do for Paul and his son Charlie.
Paul, on the other hand, is a widower-- his wife, Laura, having died in childbirth, he's forced to raise Charlie on his own as a single father. Having had no friends at all because of his stuttering and being constantly bullied, Paul finds acceptance through Laura, having met her at fourteen, and they continue their relationship well into the future until she dies. However, as we find out later, Paul loves Laura, but he isn't quite in love with her as she is for him because of his homosexuality, which he tries to deny and force back so that he can give Laura the life and love that she deserves. Even four years after her death, he still grieves over her and blames himself for not having been honest with her. On the surface, he acts charming and amiable at the best of times, and aloof and standoffish at the worst.
Through their relationship, they overcome their differences to try and forge a little path of happiness for themselves.
While I found the characters likeable, especially Karl and his resilience, I found their relationship was a bit forced at times. At the beginning, when I started the book, I wondered to myself how the author would play out Paul's attraction to Karl, considering he has been with a woman for the past decade and a half or so. It came off as a little of a disappointment that Paul was just repressing his sexuality and forcing himself to try and be happy with Laura, even when he wasn't. Of course, I completely understand where he's coming from, and I can see it happening, but his acceptance of it all and jumping into a relationship with Karl just felt a bit too forced to really find it authentic enough.
Plot and characters aside, I found it a very enjoyable and light read full of unique characters. My biggest qualm with this novel is the writing itself-- I don't think the author bothered to re-read anything that she wrote at all, and just winged the entire book. Numerous pages have missing words, grammatical errors, and lack of punctuation. In fact, in some scenes, it almost feels like she's forgotten what she's written previously-- character names replacing one another (Suddenly calling Karl "Paul" in the middle of a scene without Paul), and she contradicts her way of writing words-- on one page, she'll write "news paper," then quickly write "newspaper" on the next page, before switching back to the former "news paper," again.
On top of all that, she constantly chooses to end sentences in very odd ways before beginning a new sentence with nothing but actions, causing it to come off as fragmented sentences. For example, she'll write something along the lines of, "Karl walks over to the bed. Pulls cover down, slips in." (of course, that isn't what's actually written in the book, but I'm just giving an example.) While I can forgive a few errors in a book, this one had so many that it just simply distracted from the story.
If you also choose to read this for the sex scenes, don't get your hopes up; while scarce and far in-between, they last about one or two pages, at best, and she chooses to insert inane and childish words like "omigngf" and "myyah" as dialogue for said scenes. I understand that sex, sometimes, can be mind blowing and leaves you less than coherent, but really? In general, they felt rushed, poorly written to the point that it just sounds like something she's fantasizing in her head as opposed to an actual planned sexual scenes that advances the story further. I think she could've cut it out entirely; I found myself just skimming the dialogue for any key dialogue that might appear later on.
In conclusion-- while this story is a bit on the cliché side for this genre, it certainly has its moments with its own unique brand of humor unique characters. However, there was such bad planning and so many grammatical errors that it simply distracts from the story. For her first book, I think she did a okay job-- passable, but nothing to write home about.
If you're a grammar freak like I am, then you'll find yourself shaking your head constantly. I'd suggest you just skip this one and save yourself the headache.
