Learning to Go

Learning to Go, by Friday Donnelly, can best be compared to watching a train-wreck. A beautiful and emotional train-wreck.

On a superficial level, it could easily be described as a furry, slice-of-life, erotic romance, drama about the rocky relationship between Rufus, a co-dependent tiger, and Victor, a narcissistic lion; and things only get worse from there when, one day, Rufus decides to hire a professional Dom after one of their many, many fights.

However, a deeper look reveals instead a coming-of-age story about a mid-20s man that needs to learn how to start living for himself, instead of basing his happiness and self-worth around others. A story filled with allegories about both literature and the game of Go, which I think served well not only to foreshadow events in the story, but also to showcase the growth of our main character.

Just to get it right off the bat, there are quite a lot of issues when it comes to the writing. Grammatical errors, repetition, character inconsistencies, too much exposition, weird chapter split choices, among many others plague this novel. In fact, it was not uncommon that I had to go back to reread several parts of the novel just to be sure I was getting things straight; though all of these are relatively minor issues that could have easily been fixed with a little more editing. As for the actual content of the novel, this is where Learning to Go excels by giving us two deeply flawed characters as leads, and it's their interactions what drives the whole novel.

On the one paw, we have Rufus, our point of view character, who is a good natured man, but also naive and with both a saviour complex and self-steem issues to boot. On the other paw, we have Victor, a proud, cynical, self-loathing, and pessimistic lion whose world view was twisted after an incident that left him crippled; yet, despite his flaws, he's also shown to be caring when he wants to do so, which tricks the reader into liking and excusing his temperamental outbursts just as much as it happens with our protagonist. And believe me, these excuses and rationalizations happen a lot, because this is not a healthy relationship.

Both Rufus and Victor are stubborn, aggressive (Victor overtly, Rufus passively), don't listen to each other, don't share each other's interests, and don't even respect each other. The rate at which they break up and get back together again could put some “will they, won't they” couples to shame. Hell, it could be argued that they've never loved each other to begin with. For Rufus, Victor is a project (a fact that even he states multiple times throughout the novel). While for Victor, the only thing he likes about Rufus is the attention that the tiger gives to him. A textbook example of an abusive relationship, and a believable one at that given how all the hostility tends to happen in a more subtle manner than what we're normally used to in fiction.

Though I have to say that the ending left me with a sour taste. While easily predictable since the early parts of the book, and in spite of the epilogue tying the plot nicely, I was kind of hoping for some things to happen in a different way.

If you can stomach all the writing mistakes and are into moving dramas, interesting characters, abusive relationships, and steamy sex scenes I heavily recommend Learning to Go. As for those looking for something more polished, I'll just say to look forward instead for whatever novel Donnelly comes up next. I know I am.