Rating: 
Summary: I couldn't put it down
Review: This was a totally absorbing read; I couldn't put it down and finished it within 24 hours of when I started. I disagree with the other reviewers who wanted more about Vincent; this is fundamentally Elizabeth Stone's story, as well it should be. There was a ton of food for thought here, especially in the idea of the "relationships" we actively carry on with people who have left our lives, whether due to death or just diverging life paths. The book is back on my shelf, but still in my mind.
Rating: 
Summary: About A Boy We'll Never Know...
Review: Upon completing this book (and before reading the reviews of others on this site), I came out with many of the same feelings that they had: this book was NOT so much about the "Boy" but about the author. I'm glad to see that I wasn't the only one disappointed and misled by the book and its summary. I wanted to know more about the supposed title character...not about the author. The author left his diaries and notes to a total stranger so she could tell the world about him...about his battle with life...and death. And yet all she was concerned about was her own life. What a disappointment. I'm sure she gained something from reading his diaries, but we certainly didn't. And when she did mention him, she used quotes from his diaries that were quick notes like, "Went shopping. Met with friend." Nothing in detail. A true author who wanted to share Vincent with the world would have cut beyond his quick notes and written something with more depth, using his notes as a guide. Ms. Stone didn't seem to even "get" Vincent...or the gay lifestyle. So, after reading the book, I quickly resold it online. It wasn't a keeper for me. Sorry, Vincent...I hope someone else preserves memories of you...
Rating:
Summary: A Boy I Could Use as an Excuse to Write my Autobiography
Review: What a tremendous letdown! I picked this up because I loved the thought of the ex-teacher revealing the life of a former student through his memoirs and her memories. Too bad that isn't really the book. Elizabeth Stone uses Vincent as an excuse to write her own autobiography- and believe me, her story makes you long to hear Vincent's all the more. Perhaps his diaries were very vague or his family reticent of having his life detailed - both understandable. But, given that, there isnlt really a worthwhile project here. I got so bored that I kept skipping pages looking to find Vincent's story and all I really kept finding was hers. Ugh! A vanity project all around.
Rating:
Summary: A Boy I Could Use as an Excuse to Write my Autobiography
Review: What a tremendous letdown! I picked this up because I loved the thought of the ex-teacher revealing the life of a former student through his memoirs and her memories. Too bad that isn't really the book. Elizabeth Stone uses Vincent as an excuse to write her own autobiography- and believe me, her story makes you long to hear Vincent's all the more. Perhaps his diaries were very vague or his family reticent of having his life detailed - both understandable. But, given that, there isnlt really a worthwhile project here. I got so bored that I kept skipping pages looking to find Vincent's story and all I really kept finding was hers. Ugh! A vanity project all around.
Rating:
Summary: Memorable Memoir
Review: When I first considered reading this book I said to myself "Oh, no - not another AIDS memoir!" having read at least a dozen and lived through the 80's and 90's in the San Francisco ground-zero of AIDS.Elizabeth Stone's "A Boy I Once Knew" is something much more - a rare kind of memoir and memory game in one package. Here is a middle-aged New Jersey mother of two teenage sons in 2001 remembering a 14 yr. old student, Vincent, she briefly knew in Brooklyn 25 years earlier in the process of discovering him anew through his diaries as he grows into a 40 year old man about to die of AIDS in San Francisco in 1995. Ms. Stone ferries the reader through these dizzying time zones and locations with reflections on grief, discovery, death, illness and aging in her own family, relationships to her parents, children and husband as well as her role as teacher, mother and daughter. Reading this book is somewhat like reading a mystery where we know the beginning and the end but read to find out about the more nuanced matters in the middle. Two people become astoundingly revealed here: Vincent both through his own words and the author's recreation of him and the author through her dazzling insights into herself and her subject.
Rating: 
Summary: author biographical
Review: While I really enjoyed "A boy i once knew" I wish it was more about the boy. The novel does follow the live of Vincent and his diaries but it lacks a true sense of who he was. Oh we get plenty about his life, where he went, and his death but I didn't connect with Vincent as much as I did with the AUTHOR. Now this isn't a bad thing at all. Overall the book is really great but I learned more about the author and I got to know her more than I did about the books main character. Was this intentional? I don't think so but if you haven't read the book yet, when you do, try to look at the bigger picture: a teachers own self exploration vicariously through her students' diaries. Very well written and again I enjoyed it very much.
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