Different People : A Novel

Rating:
Summary: One of the best books I've read this year
Review: An amasing story. flowing and tantalizing. Rich characters and very good descriptive writing that made me feel what they are going through down to the last tingling sensation.
I cried with them and was really dissapointed when the book ended.

Rating:
Summary: Not bad, but tries too hard
Review: I hate to be critical of a book that is so grand in its scope, but there are things that just do not set right in this one. The good points: interesting characters, detailed motivations, and a generally captivating story. The bad points: a very annoying almost voice-over type narration that creeps in occasionally, the author's constant desire to impress us with the books he's read and, after all the wordiness that comes before it, a very tidy, pat little ending. However, this is not a bad book and there is stuff to enjoy. Just don't feel badly when you want to skip a few pages or if you have the desire to roll your eyes at some of the conceit.

Rating:
Summary: Just too much to take in one book !
Review: I just finished this book after much agonizing hours. This book is definitely not entertaining or enjoyable to read and probably Outland never intended his story to be that type of friction. Different People is heavy reading. It is too wordy with Orland trying to cramp all his views on Aids, drugs, life and even American politics into 300 over pages. The reviews at the back of the hardcopy definitely got it wrong. Different People certainly does not center on the supposed romance between Eric and Cal, the novel's two protagonists. They are hardly ever together and when they are truly together, one can actually count the number of times they spoke to each other. Definitely not a love story but Outland's opinions of the world he lives in. In addition, Eric and Cal are not easy to like or sympathize with. It is difficult to like this book.

Rating:
Summary: Captivating, even after it's over!!!
Review: Since I graduated highschool, and have yet to take a lit. class while in college, I haven't done much reading. This is the first book, honestly, that I've read.. cover to cover.. since I graduated. Absolutly the best book I've read, and one I would definatly recomend to everyone. The way that Outland brings us into the world of Cal and Eric and their families and friends is unique to this book. Not only do you see into the important, key times in the lives of Cal, Eric, Gina, Emma, and Carol you also see into the mundane, and the ordinary, to see that not only were they people, but they could be real people, just like you and me. Being gay also adds an intersting twist to the story, because I can look at it from a vantage point of being close to the story, but not part of it. The story is not my own, but it could very well be, and that is just plain frightening. It could be me; it could be you. And I am so glad that I read this one.. one problem with the book... I didn't want it to end. Not that the ending was bad...

Rating:
Summary: Captivating, even after it's over!!!
Review: Since I graduated highschool, and have yet to take a lit. class while in college, I haven't done much reading. This is the first book, honestly, that I've read.. cover to cover.. since I graduated. Absolutly the best book I've read, and one I would definatly recomend to everyone. The way that Outland brings us into the world of Cal and Eric and their families and friends is unique to this book. Not only do you see into the important, key times in the lives of Cal, Eric, Gina, Emma, and Carol you also see into the mundane, and the ordinary, to see that not only were they people, but they could be real people, just like you and me. Being gay also adds an intersting twist to the story, because I can look at it from a vantage point of being close to the story, but not part of it. The story is not my own, but it could very well be, and that is just plain frightening. It could be me; it could be you. And I am so glad that I read this one.. one problem with the book... I didn't want it to end. Not that the ending was bad...

Rating:
Summary: I've read better
Review: The premise of this book is so complex that the author gets lost in in sorting out his own plot line. You want to like the characters but they are so superficially self absorbed, I couldn't skip pages fast enough to get to the end.

Rating:
Summary: I've read better
Review: The premise of this book is so complex that the author gets lost in in sorting out his own plot line. You want to like the characters but they are so superficially self absorbed, I couldn't skip pages fast enough to get to the end.

Rating:
Summary: Art imitating life
Review: The provocative book jacket notwithstanding, author Orland Outland's "Different People" may be about gay life and relationships, but it's not one of those books that eludes the gay sexual escapades of which fantasies are made. Instead, it is a novel in the mainstream sense and, though fiction, smacks all too bittersweetly of reality, and the main characters can easily be straight or anything else. "Different People" refers to main characters Cal Hewitt and Eric Hamilton (for whom the former has the hots) and how the circumstances of their different lives doom any chance for love, until a series of tragedies brings the pair together again, after literally a lifetime of passing acknowledgments. Love and romance blossom then, but the reader is made all too painfully aware that it's to be an all-too-brief time of happiness for both men. But how Cal and Eric get to that point is sometimes all too real: one tightly closeted and full of homophobic hate for himself, the other an out-and-out gay stud, and their separate journeys that end with them taking a chance on love with each other winds through Reno, Nev., San Francisco and New York City. On their way, Cal and Eric each have their stories, all of them all to real like death of loved ones, AIDS, addiction and, to some extent, self-destruction by way of drug abuse and risky sex. "Different People," being mainstream-caliber, may be too tame for the well-versed gay reader, but distinguishes itself as smacking of truth although fiction. And in many, many respects, Cal and Eric could have been straight or a man and woman couple, so applicable are their experiences to the mainstream.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting, frustrating, enlightening and sometimes boring.
Review: The Publisher's Weekly reviewer pretty much "nailed it" for the most part, including his assessment of the characters and their actions.

In a nutshell, this is a very wordy, often interesting, often frustrating, sometimes comforting and challenging story of two neighbors, whom we meet in their early 20's and follow through to their mid 30's. You read about the experiences they shared, their dreams, unexpected life experiences, and what in their lives seemed destined to keep them apart, although fate often intervened. It gives you an idea how our upbringing - even if we disagree with the basic concepts - can affect our future attitudes and lives, both good and bad.

In my opinion, the overriding morale here is that one should keep lines of communication open, and not let your fatalistic intuition tell you that a potential relationship just "won't work," when your heart is telling you otherwise. It's a lesson that the two men never seem to learn, to the very last page.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting if a bit difficult...
Review: This is one of those books that it's very difficult to put into any sort of category. The impression I had gotten from reading the dust jacket didn't prepare me for the very dark side the book possesses. While the book tries to be about the relationship between the two main characters - Cal and Eric - it doesn't quite succeed on this level (since they spend most of the book apart). The book is also written in a rather heavy handed way and was a bit more verbose than I prefer.

The two characters begin the story as teenagers who are very different, Eric raised by his free spirited mother and Cal who spent his childhood in a repressed ultra-religious household. They discover a common bond and then are immediately pulled apart by doubt, distrust and a lack of self acceptance. This theme continues through most of the book as they become men. They each go through a period of life and then meet again only to have their relationship not work out again. Their almost but not quite relationship endures until almost the end of the book when with one simple kiss everything is made whole again. While this fairy tale ending might have been necessary it was something of a let down for me since immediately following the tentative kiss they fast forward into domestic bliss. This is especially strange for me since most of the previous hundred pages or so were a very detailed series of personal tragedies and failures for both of the characters.

Over all I would say the book is worth reading but it's not for everyone. I enjoyed parts of it but there is just a little too much of watching the both Erik and Cal self destruct before everything is magically made better. The only other piece of advice I can give if you want to read the book is have a dictionary handy - you'll need it.