Crybaby Butch

Rating:
Summary: a gorgeous, moving, steamy novel
Review: I couldn't put this book down. For one thing, I fell completely in love with the two main characters. For another, the writing is breathtaking. There are so many sentences I had to read twice because they were just so beautiful. Or oddly perfect. Or completely hilarious. Also, don't let the description fool you. Yes, it's about "adult literacy"-and poignantly, brilliantly so-but it's no chaste school-marm treatise. It's about lush, real life-and real sex, the blush-worthy kind. I loved it. I loved it so much, in fact, that I'm reading it a second time!

Rating:
Summary: Completely absorbing
Review: Once I moved beyond Chapter One, written in the second person, I found this book completely absorbing. I fretted over the characters when I had to leave the book to go to work (how annoying - work, I mean). I found the exploration of butch culture fascinating, and the difficulty of the older butch's life almost unbearable to read about. It's hard to imagine what life would be like looking like a stone butch in a society that scorned (scorns) that identity, coupled with the unbelievable alienation of being illiterate in our society. My partner and I talked about the book for hours. She read it after I did and I kept interrupting her to ask "what's happening now?" Beautifully written. As much as I worried about Chris and Anna, I also found the book wonderfully entertaining, filled with rich characters, lots of humor, wonderful insights. I feel fortunate to have read it.