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Chargement... What Love Means to You Peoplepar NancyKay Shapiro
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Inscrivez-vous à LibraryThing pour découvrir si vous aimerez ce livre Actuellement, il n'y a pas de discussions au sujet de ce livre. I found this surprisingly touching, especially at the end. ( ) I thoroughly enjoyed this wholly adult love story about two very different, very damaged men set against the backdrop of contemporary New York City. Compared to so many modern love stories (gay or straight), this novel strikes me as very realistic and grown up. Too often writers become so enamoured of their characters that they tend to shy away from showing them as whole people with human imperfections and/or they seem to graft slapdash, quickie happy endings onto otherwise complicated, difficult tales. Shapiro, however, exhibits uncommon bravery to allow her protagonists, forty something ad exec Jim Glaser and his twenty-three year old artist lover Seth McKenna, to be deeply, believably flawed. Don't get me wrong - both men are still extremely likeable, perhaps more so because they come across as so real. And the ending is realistically, but hopefully, ambiguous. Jim is still mourning the unexpected and senseless loss of his longtime lover when he meets Seth at a photo shoot. Tentatively the men begin a platonic relationship. As their feelings for one another heat up, the older man nervously delays taking the sexual plunge such that the tension between them is excruciating (for both the characters and the readers) by the time they finally do fall into bed. This proves a refreshing change of pace from so much gay fiction where the order of events tends to be - sex first, relationship later. But when Jim and Seth do consummate, the sex scenes are intensely passionate and more than a little pornographic. Hot stuff indeed. But what starts off wondrously soon sours when the secret past that Seth so meticulously hid from Jim comes back to haunt him. What Seth viewed as self-reinvention, Jim interprets as deceit. The crisis is brought to a head during a trip back to Seth's hometown in Drinkwater, Nebraska. It is in Drinkwater that I find this otherwise perfect book's only true shortcoming. I felt Shapiro, a born and bred city gal, painted most of the rural characters as broad stereotypes of ignorance and evil. It would have leant the book more gravity, and certainly been more believable, if the reader had been given more of a balanced view, perhaps even a glimpse into the motivations behind their behaviours. But this is a quibble. WHAT LOVE MEANS TO YOU PEOPLE is an amazing achievement. I recommend this to readers of LGBT fiction (and fans of the Big Apple) who seek an emotionally engaging, slightly spicy, uncommonly realistic love story. aucune critique | ajouter une critique
A powerful debut about a young man whose denial of his past nearly destroys the new life he seeks Shaking off his hellish adolescence in a nowhere Nebraska town (and leaving a beloved younger sister to fend for herself in the same hostile environment), Seth McKenna escapes to make a new reality for himself as a struggling artist in Manhattan. When he falls hard for Jim Glaser, an alluring older man who is astonished to find in Seth the second love of his life, it seems simpler to gloss over his old life in Drinkwater and the history he used to have. Jim, who expected to remain alone forever, is happy to start over, too, and theirs becomes a tender, sexy romance. Although Seth seems to have successfully put his past behind him to become the man he wants to be---the kind of man Jim can cherish---his childhood rushes back unexpectedly and with a vengeance. When Seth's sister, Cassie, arrives in the city with significant secrets and plans of her own, Drinkwater's intractable demands force Seth to revisit his hidden past. What Jim learns about Seth's concealments threatens to destroy their new life together. An engrossing contemporary drama of family ties both imposed and chosen, What Love Means to You People presents an indelible, illuminating look at the survival of the human spirit through willful reinvention and the power of love. Advance Praise for What Love Means to You People "A powerful debut novel--smart, sexy, and highly readable. NancyKay Shapiro's characters are subtly observed and movingly human."--Regina McBride, author of The Marriage Bed "Profound and moving. Shapiro dares to reimagine suffering and takes us on a journey to love and back. Seth McKenna will get under your skin. I am touched."--Abha Dawesar, author of Babyji "NancyKay Shapiro's debut is a powerful and knowing look at what can happen to love when the past bubbles up into the present. Elegantly written, this is a moving and surprising novel that doesn't let you go."--Katharine Weber, author of The Little Women, The Music Lesson, and Objects in Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear Aucune description trouvée dans une bibliothèque |
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Google Books — Chargement... GenresClassification décimale de Melvil (CDD)813.6Literature English (North America) American fiction 21st CenturyClassification de la Bibliothèque du CongrèsÉvaluationMoyenne:
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