Review: Sweet story told from the point of view of a unique character
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 08 11, 2011
Warning: This review might contain what some people consider SPOILERS.Rating: 8/10PROS:- Al's voice is simple in a way that suggests mild autism or some social disability, but I never found his simplistic phrasing or his improper grammar off-putting. Instead, I found him incredibly likeable because he doesn't complicate things unnecessarily. He reminds me a bit of Lennie from Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, although there's no underlying menace in him. He's just simple and happy, and he loves Larry with every last piece of himself.- I really liked Larry, too. He's intelligent and classy without being a condescending jerk.- Al's devotion to Larry is touching and utterly selfless, and his answers to questions about how he feels about Larry are, as Larry says, "really rather refreshingly direct." They have an interesting life together. It's not dramatic or extraordinary, but Al sees wonder even in small things, and Larry is kind and sweet and finds joy in almost everything Al does.- I enjoyed reading a story that's set in a place I've been but that doesn't focus too much on actual descriptions of the city. There are little details about Cambridge here and there in the story, but they're in the background.CONS:- There's a good deal of humor in the story, but most of it is the sort where the reader and writer are in on the joke but the character isn't. So it's funny, yes, but I always chuckled rather uneasily, like I felt that it was wrong to laugh even though Al couldn't hear me doing it.- About the last quarter of the story gets a little tedious because it turns into a play-by-play account of things Al and Larry are experiencing together: we did this, we saw that, we went here, etc.Overall comments: This is certainly worth a read in my opinion. Usually I'm a little bothered by stories that are told entirely from one character's point of view, but Al's voice is so unique that I wanted to read as much of his narration as possible. There's quite a bit of sex in the book, and those scenes are not subtle, but they're not terribly graphic either. Sex is just the main way the two men connect, so they're in the bedroom together a lot.