Father's Day

Rating:
Summary: great read!
Review: This book was a great read! Full of humor and pathos. Can't wait for Galanes's next novel. I hope this one is the first of many.

Rating:
Summary: Needs more sizzle
Review: This is the story of Matthew Vaber, whose father has committed suicide. He deeply loves his mother, who is rather unattached to everything, it seems, and they both blame themselves for the death. Matthew also finds facts about his mother's past that make him suspicious of her ability to tell the truth.

Matthew has an addiction to a phone sex line to meet anonymous lovers. Later he meets a nice guy, Henry, and almost sabotages it with his distrust. I had to pull myself through the book. The emotions seem a bit muted, the characters somewhat colorless (though not entirely), and there is certainly no uniqueness to the plot or environment. Also, Matthew's references to name-brand this and that is a very tired gay novel cliche.

I dislike being negative about a first-time fiction author, but this falls short of the mark for me. A book can be "quiet" and still be great (witness "Cold Mountain" by Charles Frazier) and gay novels don't all have to be a wild sex romp or have a crazy plot. But this book was neither.

Surprising here are the remarks that it's a "great beach read" or "light, easy reading." It's not. Nor is it a highly literary read: often the dialogue falls into the trite. The author needs to focus on which scenes need to be condensed and how to drive a sharper plot, even in a book primarily about quiet emotions.