Not a bad way to spend an afternoon, but if you're looking for something racy, you won't find it here.
Turning the is-he-or-isn't-he trope of gay romance on its ear, Gallagher offers her readers a less traditional love story between two asexual men, one of whom is just coming to terms with what this new identity might mean for him.
Brennan has been dumped for the third time in a row by a woman who was sexually dissatisfied with him. Figuring there must be something wrong with him, he decides to do some research on his techniques and winds up in the only logical place: ye olde local porn store. It's there that he meets Zafir, who, after troubleshooting his coital woes, suggests that perhaps Brennan is also asexual. Since asexuality is not something that exists in the vocabulary of most red-blooded all-American dudes, it takes some time to wrap his head around. And there's a lot to figure out. If he's asexual, what does that mean? If he's attracted to Zafir, does that mean he's gay? Or biromantic? Gallagher does a great job of explaining these concepts without getting preachy or taking the reader out of the story. Her characters are well-rounded, and it's a pretty straightforward narrative. Zafir is a Muslim single dad working two jobs. Brennan is a semipro skateboarder who works part time when he's not competing. The two men fall quickly into a comfortable friendship that leads them separately to wonder if this unconventional happiness might be love. While there probably aren't tons of books specifically about two asexual dudes trying to make an honest go of it, this is a pretty typical feel-good boy-meets-boy sort of story.
Not a bad way to spend an afternoon, but if you're looking for something racy, you won't find it here.Pub Date: June 13, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-62649-420-6
Page Count: 220
Publisher: Riptide
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2016
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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