Review: I Wish...
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 04 19, 2014
I wish it were easier to write this review. On the one hand, it's a very important book. On the other hand, it's a bit disappointing. At least to me, and I'm obviously in the minority.Let's deal with the first issue: this is not a book. Nor is it the third in series or a sequel to the other too. My Big Fat Southern Gay Wedding is the third chapter in a book of almost 900 pages. And I give credit to Ms. York for pricing each of the three "books" appropriately. The total is entirely appropriate, if not generous, for a book that's quickly closing in on a thousand pages. I've seen quite a few short stories in the Kindle Store that charged a lot more for less than 50.The good:This is an important and epic story. It touches on one of the greatest issues of our times - the role of hate in the political process, religion, and denying LGBT Americans their rights under the Constitution. Like thousands of other children of so-called "religious Christian" families, both main characters were badly scarred, and almost destroyed, by the bigotry of their families and their churches. Too many of our young LGBTQ kids end up dead or on the streets as a result of this hate-mongering. What could possibly cause a mother and father to turn on their own child just because of who he or she is and whom he or she loves? They don't deserve to be parents. Yet, pastors rage from the pulpit, every day, against their children, telling their families to beat them, throw them out or send them to a "reparative" Christian program to force them to become straight - which, of course, is impossible, so the kids and families face failure, self-hate and, all too often, suicide.I can't believe ANY spiritual person who truly believes that loving is evil.Ms. York apparently agrees, making no attempt to diagnose or explain the hatred of the parents in this book. Quite rightly, she just acknowledges that they exist and chronicles the terrible damage they do to their kids, families, communities and the core message of Christ to love one another.In the hands of a master, this would be an astonishing and stunningly important work of fiction.The bad:And that's where I have my problem with these three chapters: Ms. York was extremely inconsistent in her writing, research and editing. Surely, there were moments when I was moved to tears. There were many more moments when my anger at these inexcusable bigots forced me to walk away from the book, sometimes for days at a time. And, as I feared it would (especially in this chapter - My Big Fat Southern Gay Wedding), it often devolved into M/M romance melodrama. And that's a shame.At first, I thought I might be reading a Young Adults novel, the prose and dialog being so simple and simplistic. I can't tell you how many hundreds of pages were dedicated to "I love you" and "I miss your kisses" following the typical romance novel "insta-love" that occured the first time the two closeted boys saw each other across a room. The writing is hardly poetic and, all too often repetitive, to the point that, occasionally, I stopped to ask myself "is anything ever going to happen here?".In addition, there were a number of times when critical plot points were so implausible that I was tempted to put down the book. For example, how does an 18-year-old get put into foster care? There is no state in this nation where kids do not age out on their eighteenth birthday. They are adults, and they get to make their own choices. And though Ms. York may have been completely right is suggesting that, due to long-term abuse, both boys may have suffered from some form of arrested development (continuing to rely on parents who are starving and abusing them well past the age of majority), this is just a legal fiction. Yet she has one of her main characters returned to his abusive parents after being put into foster care, for his own protection, by a DA who believes in "family reunification". First of all, there would never be a DA involved in anything like this. Family reunification is a concept of social workers and family court, not of a criminal prosecutor. The idea that ANYONE would force an 18-year-old to move back with his parents is just ridiculous. And without that, where does the book go? Why does a kid hated by his parents, whom he, in turn, fears and hates, go back to live in the parents' home, knowing what is coming? Stockholm syndrome, perhaps? Or "battered child" syndrome (if such a thing exists)? Or is it just that Ms. York needed a device to force one of her main characters to suffer in order to propel her plot? She should have made him 17.And then there is that silly bit about how one of the main characters has a fetish for wearing red or pink ladies panties? Or one of the characters' young brothers (only 7) appears to be a cross-dresser (not transgender) who wants to be a princess? And, insultingly, how even those who "love" the kid characterize him as being "very very gay", as opposed to his big brother who "doesn't even look or act gay"? I didn't know that there was such a thing as "shades of gay".My last issue is the editing. There's a huge number of pages in this book, so I guess a few bobbles might be forgiven, but when, oh when, will gay fiction writers finally realize that there are NO apostrophes in plurals? On top of that, there were a number of sentences missing verbs or pronouns, and a few in which the order was reversed as in "He went the store to". This is a longstanding complaint of mine, the disrespect to readers by authors and publishers who just can't seem to manage to edit their work thoroughly is inexcusable.In conclusion, you might want to read this book for its theme and its messages, which are powerful, valid and important.But I must admit my disappointment in the writing -  it's not exactly poetic. If nothing else, A Southern Thing, is a difficult slog, but those who appreciate angst in big doses just might enjoy slogging through all this to get at the still-compelling story of two engaging characters who, eventually, find their happily-ever-after.