Rating: 
Summary: absolutely beautiful! definitely unforgetable!
Review: Marion Zimmer Bradley has been my favourite writer since i read «The Mists Of Avalon», a few years ago. I read many of her books related to fantasy and misticisms, but i had no idea of what to expect from this «Catch Trap». Well, its first pages was all it took for me to fall in love with Mario and Tom. It's definitely the most beautiful love story i've read, so intense and vivid that i even got the feeling i was actually living it, not just reading it. There's no place for anyone to be prejudiced against anything in this book. Mario and Tommy are just two human beings, trying to find their own place in life with equal doses of love and desperation. I read the book in a weekend and i was left feeling empty when it was over. I miss those characters as if they had actually lived with me for a while. I cannot think about any other book as perfect as this.
Rating:
Summary: absolutely beautiful! definitely unforgetable!
Review: Marion Zimmer Bradley has been my favourite writer since i read «The Mists Of Avalon», a few years ago. I read many of her books related to fantasy and misticisms, but i had no idea of what to expect from this «Catch Trap». Well, its first pages was all it took for me to fall in love with Mario and Tom. It's definitely the most beautiful love story i've read, so intense and vivid that i even got the feeling i was actually living it, not just reading it. There's no place for anyone to be prejudiced against anything in this book. Mario and Tommy are just two human beings, trying to find their own place in life with equal doses of love and desperation. I read the book in a weekend and i was left feeling empty when it was over. I miss those characters as if they had actually lived with me for a while. I cannot think about any other book as perfect as this.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't read this when you need a good night's sleep!!
Review: Most of the positive things that have been said about this book are true. The detail is vivid, the characters are believable and complex, and the issues that the book faces are very important.However, this is NOT a book for the faint of heart or for the easily offended. It is very far from political correctness, there is quite a bit of violence involved (especially between the two main characters, which DID disturb me), and the emotional intensity of the book comes to the point of pain for the reader. While I understand that this is probably pretty realistic as far as gay life of the time was concerned, and MZB's storytelling usually has a strong effect on me, this was to the point of being completely overwhelmed. Hence, only four stars -- you know what they say about too much of a good thing being bad....
Rating:
Summary: Gay Love Suffers, Then Survives A Homophobic World
Review: Set in the 10-year period between 1944 and 1953, The Catch Trap chronicles the life of Tommy Zane as he grows from gay adolescent into a gay man. Zane and his love interest, Mario Santelli, struggle with inner demons; both were brainwashed by a homophobic society so they struggle with self hatred. The book also broaches the topic of physical violence in gay relationships, an issue not usually covered in the run-of-the-mill gay romance novels. Then again, this book isn't run of the mill. If you're looking for a light-hearted book where everything is perfect or where gay men are blissed out and live in a world where being gay is completely accepted, skip this book. But, if you are ready to see life through the eyes of gay men struggling to find happiness and love in a realistic manner, don't miss this masterpiece. MZB creates characters in this book who will be with you for a long time.
Rating:
Summary: This is MZB's Best Book
Review: The Catch Trap is not only elegantly written, full of detail and complex in its characterization, it is the most tightly written of MZB's larger novels. I would kill to play the walk-on role of Barney should it be filmed. Most interestingly, at her funeral it was revealed that she wrote this remarkable Gay themed novel in 1948! --Long before anybody else was even attempting such a positive statement about Gayness. Buy two copies if you haven't read it: one for yourself, and one for the first person to whom you want to give it. I rank this next to Mary Renault's The Last of the Wine.
Rating:
Summary: The epitome of gay love stories.
Review: The circus milieu is fresh and fascinating, the central love story is rich and fully realized, and the sense of history revealed is remarkable. While many readers may disagree with some of the "political" points made about homosexuality and its place in a conformist society (as I did), the cumulative effect of this heartfelt and meticulously developed tale is amazing.
Rating: 
Summary: Boring! Bad! Poor Closet Cases!!
Review: This book has got to be one of the worst Novels I've ever read about gay men. Being a gay man I would never be in a relationship as bad as these two had. Talk about two closet cases. What a mess. Then they decied it's time to move on because they didn't get along..well, several years later they meet up again, one has spent a few years in the army..don't ask don't tell...the other got married, and while he's married..they start up again. And it's like reading the same thing over and over again, they fight...have sex....they fight....have sex....they fight...have sex...please!!! Do yourself a favor don't read this book. If you want to read a great gay novel read The Front Runner...one of the best!! Marion stick to Avalon..leave the gay writing to the Gay Writers who know what they are writing about!!!!!
Rating:
Summary: Realistic and beautifully written novel
Review: This book is another great master piece by M Z Bradley. I've already read lots of books by her and I think this one's the best. If you didn't read it, read it now! And don't be scared by the number of pages, you'll find yourself reading over 100 pages per day... It focuses interesting themes like circus and homossexuality in a very opened way. Everybody should read a story like this one. A Must!!!
Rating:
Summary: One of my all-time favourites
Review: This book is certainly one of the best books I have ever read -- and I have read it at least 3 times. Zimmer Bradley really did her homework. The atmosphere in the book is beautifully depicted. You can almost smell the circus. You are drawn into the story, unable to put the book down.
The love story between Tommy and Mario/Matt is essential, yet Zimmer Bradley manages to tell a gay love story in a way that appeals to everybody (who is without predjudices, that is of course). Longing, the difficulties of growing up, beauty, ambition, loss and sacrifices that need to be made mix together and really make you suffer and "live" with the characters.
I was 14 when I first read the book, and still now, at the age of 25, I love it.
The German translation is very good as well, by the way :-).
Rating:
Summary: Love, In Any Form, Is a Beautiful Word
Review: Those who are familiar with Bradley's Darkover works know that she has tackled the theme of homosexuality before, but those works are set in a future, almost alien environment. This book's setting is one that almost everyone has had at least some contact with, that of the circus and the high-flying trapeze act. The period is the forties and fifties, a time when such relationships were never, ever talked about, criminalized in most states, and ruined many careers and lives if they became public knowledge. To this setting Bradley brings a remarkably apt pen, one that shows the circus in such detail that you can literally hear the elephants trumpet, the lions roar, the drum roll before the death-defying flight of the trapeze artist. The book follows the happening of the Flying Santellis, a family that has given their all to the perfection of the trapeze act since the 1890s. The Santellis are a close-knit family, held together by tradition, discipline, and a set of old-world values. To this family comes young Tommy Zane, entranced by the dream of becoming a flyer, and so familiar with world of the circus as the son of a lion tamer that the lives of non-circus people seem almost unreal to him. He is brought under the wing of Mario Santelli for training, and there is a quickly developing attraction between the two, an attraction that is far more than just physical, an attuning of each to the other that leads to their perfect sense of timing with each other on the trapeze. It is this point that Bradley develops so well in this novel, the impossibility of separating a person's sexuality from the rest of their lives, that love is far more than just sex. Add to that the environment of that time, when such love could not be freely expressed, and you have the recipe for serious emotional repression and destructive anger. Bradley's characters' feelings and thoughts bristle with such charge that it is impossible not to become caught up in their plight, not to have your own anger raised at the stupidity and prejudice displayed by Angelo, Mario's uncle, and others. The rest of the Santelli family have their own problems, too, somewhat more conventional, but just as heart-breaking, just as real as the family next door. The book's ending is a true emotional uplift, growing out of and very true to Bradley's characters' development into mature individuals. Bradley's sexual descriptions are only very mildly graphic, but there is some violence depicted here that might disturb some readers. But that is part of the point: it should disturb, that a society's rules, when at odds with basic human nature, can lead to such outbreaks of violence, detrimental to both the involved individuals and the society at large. An impeccably detailed setting, sharply realized characters that live and breathe, an explosive situation, and a thematic message that is handled with grace and much insight - this is a novel that demands reading, regardless of your own sexual preferences. --- Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)
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