Rating: 
Summary: The best Kallmaker book yet!
Review: A beautiful read. Kallmaker writes a lush, full-bodied story, that is not only about love, but of coming of age within oneself, dealing with the worst kind of blackmail, and keeping true to who you are, no matter how awful the obstacles. Substitute for Love is a novel full of spice, intelligence, heat and passion, and a very mature and even handling of the issue of gay civil liberties, that in no way detracts from the tale, but instead enhances the reader's perception of these issues, as well as giving us meaningful insight into the character's lives and the reasons for their actions. There were so many twists in this novel, and such a richness of physical dialogue/attraction and passion between the two characters, that I really could not put this book down! This really is my favourite of Karin's books, it without a doubt has more to it than your average romance novel - a must read. Most definitely.
Rating:
Summary: Highly Recommended!
Review: At long last, I finally read Kallmaker's critically acclaimed book, SUBSTITUTE FOR LOVE, and believe me, it was time well spent. This book is noteworthy and remarkable, and it very much deserved the Lammy nomination it got.
SFL is a well-plotted, intelligent, and nuanced book made all the more excellent by the way Kallmaker has woven thematic threads throughout. In addition, the story is well-written and capably edited, with memorable scenes and language. I found myself marking great passages (no, not the sex scenes! ) which I re-read when I finished the book.
Holly thinks she is a regular, run-of-the-mill straight woman. She has abandoned a promising math career because her long-term boyfriend, Clay, told her to, just as her overbearing aunt/foster mother has. Holly is, in actuality, an honest-to-goodness math wizard. Not only is she good at the subject, but she loves it. Instead of following her dream to be a math teacher and researcher, she works in an actuarial office so that *Clay* can be a teacher. She and Clay live rather predictably, with Clay's needs always coming first. "They had worked hard to keep everything the same from day to day, as if tomorrow would never come and niether of them would ever change."
After ten years, Holly is finally ready to crack out of her shell. For this, she is not prepared, but as Kallmaker tells us, "When dams burst, floods are inevitable." Holly's shocking realization that she is attracted to women begins a series of events that lead her to the other main character in the book, Reyna.
Unlike Holly, Reyna knows she is lost, but she is powerless to change her circumstances without harming her mother over whom her father has a chokehold. Reyna chooses to live a double life--one life that satisfies her domineering and over-reaching father, and the other life a series of one night stands carried out Friday nights after slipping away from the private detectives her father has watching her. Reyna works at her father's conservative think tank doing a job that is morally and ethically repugnant to her, but it pays her mom's medical bills and keeps her alive. She is trapped and spiraling further downward daily.
And then, Holly and Reyna meet, and sparks fly.
In addition to math/numbers analogies and themes, I loved the leitmotif of the sextant. Lost on a hike with friends, Holly is able to use a sextant and her math and mechanical skills to determine longitude and latitude in a key scene. But what she can do externally takes her much longer internally, and we are far into the book before "she accepted that even with two mirrors, the horizon, and a familiar star to navigate by, she still wouldn't know where she was." Neither Holly or Reyna know where they are, at least not until a lot of issues start getting worked out.
I liked the fact that this book was not a typical romance, nor was I able to guesstimate how it would turn out. I wanted it to have a happy ending, but right up to the end, I wasn't sure how that ending would look. It is to Kallmaker's credit that she has infused a genre book with such life, energy, and unpredictableness. Even the title has more than one meaning, with the word "substitute" working on multiple levels.
This is an example of lesbian fiction of the highest quality, well worth reading and rereading. I highly recommend it and find it to be, so far, my favorite book of 2002.
Rating: 
Summary: Quite overrated
Review: I am a fan of most of Kallmaker's earlier work, but it seems like her more recent books are getting thicker and thicker... with details I don't really care for. I think it's great that the author is doing her homework and researching the careers that she is writing about, but I really don't think that the majority of the book should be about it! To give you an idea of how much of this extra boring detail there is, the two main characters don't even meet until halfway into the book! I like a story where the focus is on the two main characters, their feelings and reactions to each other. There is very little of that here and I was rather disappointed. If I went through the book fast it was because I was speeding through the mundane day-to-day anguish that both characters are going through. I enjoy character interaction, not prolonged pain and suffering.
Rating:
Summary: Quite overrated
Review: I am a fan of most of Kallmaker's earlier work, but it seems like her more recent books are getting thicker and thicker... with details I don't really care for. I think it's great that the author is doing her homework and researching the careers that she is writing about, but I really don't think that the majority of the book should be about it! To give you an idea of how much of this extra boring detail there is, the two main characters don't even meet until halfway into the book! I like a story where the focus is on the two main characters, their feelings and reactions to each other. There is very little of that here and I was rather disappointed. If I went through the book fast it was because I was speeding through the mundane day-to-day anguish that both characters are going through. I enjoy character interaction, not prolonged pain and suffering.
Rating:
Summary: Kallmaker makes me a romance fan!
Review: I am a fantasy and science fiction fan first, and I love all of Karin Kallmaker's books written as Laura Adams. Her most recent romance novel has made me a romance fan as well.Other reviews have said plenty about how NOT romance formula this novel is. Let me be the first to talk about the secondary characters. Not once but over and over again Kallmaker introduces a character who is crucial to the plot. This person may have only a few pages throughout the entire novel, but their character is still COMPLETELY set out. Some writers might have had an "ex-gay" man simply there for ridicule, but Kallmaker made me actually feel compassion for this tortured man. There's a private detective who hides a hero under layers of indifference and empty styrofoam coffee cups. And Audra -- something as simple as the amount of dust on the handle to her liquor cabinet told me volumes about who she is and how hard a situation had to be for her to need a drink to get through it. That artful nuance of characterization warned me I had to brace myself for the next revelation in Holly's search to understand her past. Even so, it left me stunned and deeply moved. I haven't read a lot of lesbian romance novels, but those I have don't even come close to the level of skill displayed in the creation of this wrenching, realistic and intensely entertaining book. It's so well-written that even I am starting to bristle when my friends sneer at "romance trash." This ain't trash -- it's pure treasure.
Rating:
Summary: Couldn't put it down!
Review: I couldn't put this book down and read it in one sitting! You will be rooting for these two women, who are drawn to each other at a chance meeting in a bar. They soon realize they are meant to be together but circumstances keep them apart. This is only the second book I have read by Karin Kallmaker and I can't wait to read more. Each character is fighting an inner battle to become who she really longs to be. Work, family and society
pressures keep separating Holly and Reyan. I had to keep reading
to see how this turned out. This is one book I will read over and over again. You won't be disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: Deserving Lammy Finalist - wow!
Review: I didn't read this book until it showed up as a Lammy finalist. I've never been much of a romance fan because it's all a formula with girl-next-door characters. The sex fades to black before anything really interesting happens. Karin Kallmaker seems to have no idea what a romance is supposed to be! She dares to defy the romance formula by delaying the actual meeting of the characters until nearly three-quarters of the way through the book. Then she has the audacity to spend an entire chapter on every sensation, nuance and climax that results when the two women finally do meet. Not satisfied with that, she also spends way, way too much time developing her primary and secondary characters, giving them whole lives with real jobs and inescapable pressures. Reyna is hardly girl-next-door material, not with the bike, the secret life and a job doing research on behalf of anti-gay groups. Holly -- well, I can't even think of any other female mathematician in any lesbian-written literature. Again, not the girl-next-door at all. Someone tell this woman she's writing terrible "romances!" I notice in another review a suggestion that this book has nothing but bad male characters. Sure the boyfriend and father are only slightly redeemed by the end of the story, but there is a teacher and private detective who are both genuinely decent. The portrait of the "cured" gay man was heartbreaking. I may be hooked on these terrible "romances" from now on. How shall I ever tell my friends?!
Rating:
Summary: Math made FASCINATING
Review: I find all things mathematical beyond dreary. Never held my interest. Until this book. Only Karin Kallmaker could make chaos theory, random patterns and a mariner's sextant (which I'd never heard of!) not only fascinating but glamorous! Hats off once again. Incredibly read, very moving, emotional, hot and relevant. How does she get allthat in one book?
Rating:
Summary: OH MY GOSH!
Review: I have never reviewed a book before, but this book, oh my gosh, this book is just so out of this world amazing I had to. Speaking as a mathematician just coming out, this book leaves me speechless. I cried I was so happy and so sad during parts. I became the characters; this book is so real. If I had to give away all my books but one (heaven forbid) this would be the one I keep. I almost threw this book out the window in the first couple chapters, the book wretched such emotion for me, but thank my lucky stars I didn't. You have to read this book. You just have to.
Rating: 
Summary: Kallmaker keeps on ticking...
Review: I have read and enjoyed many of Karin Kallmaker's books and "Substitute for Love" is among her best. Holly has a mentally abusive aunt who has hidden her past, a clueless boyfriend who takes advantage of her in many ways, and new friends that open her up to a whole new world. Reyna has a bigoted father who uses her mother's illness to blackmail her into submission.
I liked the overall story and give it 5 stars. However, Holly's newfound sexuality and immediate love connection with Reyna seem a little far fetched. If you can accept that we read fiction to escape the real world and see the (almost) impossible happen, you'll enjoy this book immensely.
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