Review: A Good Book, But...
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 11 25, 2013
This is, I believe, the seventh Jet Myles book I've read in the past month. I like her style, and her characters, though a bit over the top, are huge fun - and "over the top" is what I like about the rock band life.Rabin (is it RAH BIN, RAY BIN or RUH BEEN, like the late Israeli Prime Minister?) is a member of a now defunct one-hit-wonder band (Indigo Knights), but is an accomplished and respected musician who sat in with Heaven, the band that populates the entire series of Ms. Mykles' "Heaven" books. In fact, a couple of the main characters from that series appear in this one, as well, giving some kind of continuity.The books are well-written, easy-to-digest and always a bit of fun. This was not the best of them. The story was pretty cut-and-dried, the drama predictable, and the theme exactly the same as all the other books: "straight" rock musician falls for another very pretty guy.That theme is part of the fun. But it's also got me a bit worried now that I've had time to digest seven of these books. In every single book, a guy who is straight, bi or highly closeted comes out when he falls in love with an out gay man. Or vice versa. Johnnie, from the first book, is the prototype for all that follows, a bi rock star who seduces and falls in love with a straight young hotel manager (and son of the owner) when the band plays his hotel for the grand opening of its new nightclub.That is followed by every other member of Heaven, supposedly straight, each falling for another guy over the course of the next four or five books.It's an attractive conceit and plays into many gay men's fantasy of bedding the straight guy they always admired from afar (or not so afar!).But, it now seems to me to be not necessarily a good thing. In every book, some guy "turns", but only for the one man. It's either "gay for you only" or "I'm bi and choosing a man today" or some such thing. What worries me is, doesn't that play into the homophobes' hands, reinforcing their ridiculous idea that one's sexual orientation can be changed? Or even worse, that gays are out "recruiting" everywhere they go? Because ultimately, that seems to be what's going on here. Which means a) the individual "conversion" of every member of a band over five books is simply not credible or b) that we are all out to "flip" every straight guy we can get our hands on.In point of fact, the basic theme of all these books is a fantasy. Not one of the men who "flipped" was actually straight. Either they were closeted gay men, bi, or deep in denial. But certainly NOT straight.You see my dilemma? I may, indeed, be wrong, but I admit that with this seventh book, I have come to seriously question whether these plots are good for the LGBT community or whether, instead, they reinforce negative and false stereotypes that are often used against us.Just thinking about this stuff... I still gave the book four stars.