Rating: 
Summary: Suspiciously over-rated...
Review: ...If you like predictable, slow paced cliché riddled gay literature then this is the book for you. If not then save your time and money. As soon as The Lodger arrives on the scene then the ultimate ending is not too hard to work out, but takes a long time to arrive. My biggest problem with this book was my dislike for Honza the main character. Why someone who is so self possessed, shallow and vain is so well liked by family, neighbours, shopkeepers and the local drag queen did not make sense. Also irritating was the nephews incessant addressing Honza as Uncle. This is all dished up against the usual background of Steps, drugs and sex in toilets. I was looking forward to this book but was sadly disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: Suspiciously over-rated...
Review: ... If you like predictable, slow paced cliché riddled gay literature then this is the book for you. If not then save your time and money. As soon as The Lodger arrives on the scene then the ultimate ending is not too hard to work out, but takes a long time to arrive. My biggest problem with this book was my dislike for Honza the main character. Why someone who is so self possessed, shallow and vain is so well liked by family, neighbours, shopkeepers and the local drag queen did not make sense. Also irritating was the nephews incessant addressing Honza as Uncle. This is all dished up against the usual background of Steps, drugs and sex in toilets. I was looking forward to this book but was sadly disappointed.
Rating: 
Summary: Highly recommendable
Review: Comical yet sensitive and touching, this is a wonderful blend of mystery, comedy and romance. The dialogue is simple, at times hilarious, yet totally engaging. The relationship development between the reluctant hero and his adorable lover is a joy to read. A wonderful and amazing debut! Let's hope the second book is coming soon.
Rating: 
Summary: Makes You Want to Get a Lodger
Review: Drew Gummerson's novel "The Lodger" is an enjoyable book. There is a predictable style to it that probably is the author's intent. It's easy to get "involved" with the characters. I found myself waiting for the commute home to immerse myself back into this book. This novel reads very easily and the pages practically turn themselves. I highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Makes You Want to Get a Lodger
Review: Drew Gummerson's novel "The Lodger" is an enjoyable book. There is a predictable style to it that probably is the author's intent. It's easy to get "involved" with the characters. I found myself waiting for the commute home to immerse myself back into this book. This novel reads very easily and the pages practically turn themselves. I highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Endearing characters; compelling story!
Review: Even without the dismal editorial review I read prior to purchasing The Lodger I would still feel compelled to submit my own review of this engaging, well written story. Honza, the protagonist, is a lovable "everyman" sort of guy - freelance writer, wannabe but rejected novelist, romantic who was hurt by a former lover, loving uncle, concerned brother to his prostitute sister, and dutiful son to his somewhat overbearing mother. Honza works from his home and, finding that he isn't quite making ends meet financially, decides to advertise for a lodger. Of the three responses he gets from his ad, he decides to go with the one who is least his "type", having immediately succumbed to having sex with the second applicant while showing him the room. Honza suspects that young, working class Andy's reason for answering the ad is that he is venturing from his parent's home for the first time. Andy is the picture of a young heterosexual male, from spitting into the toilet when he is shown the bathroom to bounding back up the stairs and using the toilet while leaving the bathroom door open at the conclusion of the tour of the house. Andy is so much the opposite of Honza, Honza attempts to forestall agreeing to accepting Andy as a lodger at the conclusion of the interview. In fact, the actual agreement is simply implied in the final humorous interchange between the two. From the initial meeting between Honza and Andy, all of the dialogue between the two characters is reserved, yet charged with emotion, and most often I found myself either smiling or laughing out loud at the humor present in almost every situation. The implication of the editorial review I saw for this book led me to believe the story was a mystery, perhaps even involving murder. The cover of the book, along with the jacket summation both further that supposition. However, the possibility that Andy is a murderer derives from a statement he makes to Honza when he returns from a day with his mates in a drunken stupor. Because of the little Honza knows about Andy, he immediately conjures up an extreme explanation; not to say that Andy is completely innocent of misdeeds, as Honza eventually discovers. The Lodger is a wonderfully compelling read and I found it hard to put down. Even with restraint I was only able to make it last a couple of days. From the beginning I knew how I wanted (hoped!) the story would end, and I wasn't completely disappointed. I am looking forward to Drew Gummerson's second novel.
Rating:
Summary: A fantastic debut!
Review: I read this book over only 2 days - and it dominated those 2 days. As they say, I couldn't put it down. The characters were realistic and I warmed to them greatly. Many times I laughed out loud. It was quite the funniest book I have read in a long time. In the end, I didn't want to to end. One question, when is the next book coming out? Excellent!
Rating:
Summary: Pure Entertainment
Review: Larry Bailey, The Open Book Ltd, Sacremento
Drew Gummerson was a delightful discovery. His latest book "The Lodger" is a book to read when you want to read a fun novel, just for the pure pleasure of reading.
What makes Drew Gummerson's work so enjoyable is his great timing in setting up scenes, situations, and characters well in advance of the punch lines and "troubled" conclusions. This book is really a well-orchestrated comedy, drama, suspense and love story. There were some situations in "The Lodger" that left me laughing and rolling on the floor, while other sections kept me reading as fast as I could, flipping through pages to end the suspense of the immediate story line's subplot.
"The Lodger" revolves around a main character named Honza Drobrolowski. Honza is gay, a writer by profession, living in Derby, England, but has been a little slow in getting his work published. In order to makes ends meet, he is forced to sub-rent a room to a lodger (room mate to US). Trying to keep his writing on a regular schedule, he picks the applicant (Andy) with the least interest to him: straight, works as a hauler (moving man), keeps to a strict schedule (goes to work, comes home, drinks beer, watches television, and goes to bed). Slowly, Honza's world starts to un-wined: his sister (who we discover is really a whore) and his nephew (who he absolutely adores and keeps on weekends) are moving to London; he can't get his book published; and his lodger, who has become a steady, lovable person through his simplicity, reliable, and unassuming roommate, comes home drunk, very late, one evening and announces while passing out on the bed "he really didn't mean to kill him".
Drew Gummerson's book, "The Lodger" is pure entertainment; it doesn't get much better than this!
Rating:
Summary: You WILL love this book!
Review: O.K. I don't want to write this review in too gushing a manner but I really did love it! The characters were intriguing and the story compelling. I read 'The Lodger' over a period of only two evenings (another attack of 'couldn't put it down' syndrome) and even found that the story's main characters (Honza the writer, his nephew Nicholas and his lodger Andy) invaded one of my dreams on the first night after I'd started reading this humorous and emotive tale of a man just looking for an 'easy' life. This book is highly recommended. I'm just trying to work out how many friends and relatives I can get away with buying this for as a gift for Christmas...
Rating:
Summary: Astounding
Review: Renting out a room can be hell, especially when you're used to living on your own. There's something very threatening about letting a lodger into your private space, never quite knowing if they are who they say they are. What if they turn out to be a serial killer? Or worse, straight? Such a dilemma faces Honza Drobrolowski, a freelance writer whose commissions aren't enough to pay off his mounting credit card bills. Reluctantly he decides to let out his small spare room. After rejecting a dippy hippy and a fellow gay man called David (who, in a brief but graphic sex scene, it becomes clear is of rather Goliath proportions), Honza eventually settles on a skeletally thin haulier called Andy. Unlike the art-house film loving Honza, Andy has simple tastes: he slobs on the sofa in front of soap operas and football, resting a can of beer between his legs and moving occasionally to fart the Match of the Day theme tune. Bizarrely, Honza finds himself liking Andy more and more, probably because he's like a grown-up version of the landlord's four-year-old nephew Nicholas, who visits every weekend while his prostitute mother is turning tricks. Nicholas and Andy get on like a house on fire, and Honza finds himself settling into an unexpected life of domesticity, despite having to explain to all and sundry that Andy is just 'the lodger', and not 'the LODGER lodger'. This life of bliss starts to crack when Andy returns from a drunken night out with his "mates", and confesses to Honza that he's killed a man. From that point on, one expects the novel to turn into a murder mystery, or one in which the lodger turns out to be exactly the sort of blood-crazed axe man that Honza feared when he first let out the room. It doesn't. Instead, we continue following these two amiable people getting on with their lives, with the mystery of Andy's alcohol-induced half-confession playing only slightly on Andy's mind. It's a brave decision on the part of the author, but a very successful one. We all imagine that our own lives could be more thrilling than they actually are, but to be able to replicate that in a novel without the reader feeling cheated is a rare feat. The thrill, once Andy reveals the true nature of his secret and he and Honza set out to right the wrong, lies not in 'whodunit' style mystery, but the tensions of whether these two likeable characters will be able to emerge with their friendship intact. The subplot about Honza's sister running off to London with her son in tow is deftly handled, and the heartbreak Honza feels at the thought of losing access to Nicholas is all too palpable. The Lodger is Drew Gummerson's first novel, and an astounding, deservedly confident one it is too. Combining moments of high class wry comedy with well-observed sideswipes at the nature of being gay in Britain today, it deserves to be on everybody's bookshelf.
| 
