Review: A Fun, Good-Hearted Book
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 11 3, 2013
This was a wonderful, hysterically funny read.The author had me at "Stanley and his boner hopped out of the shower", and put me flat on my back, rolling on the floor while the 300+ pound drag queen with the body hair of an ape got waxed from head to toe!There were points in the book when I had to stop reading... I couldn't get my out-loud laughter under control, and for that I thank Mr. Inman from the bottom of my heart.A bare-bones story of Roger, a total hunk of the first order, and Stanley, he of the dotty, domineering mother and his deep feelings of inferiority, finding their way to love - despite Stanley's conviction that gods like Roger don't mix with boring mortals like him. They do get over it. It takes a while to get there, and a lot of that time is taken up with the madcap stories of the supporting characters - and "characters" is the only apt description of them!But they're all lovable. There's not a villain in the pack, and their foibles are laugh-out-loud colorful and ridiculous (like the gay UPS guy who suffers from kleptomania, which keeps his apartment awash in unopened UPS packages, not to mention a surfeit of toasters, boom-boxes, kitchen appliances and everything but (perhaps even that) the kitchen sink.I gave it four stars, although I really wanted to give it 5, because the ending dragged on without the humor that drove the rest of the book - in fact, it got a little maudlin. Too bad, Mr. Inman really needed a socko ending that left you laughing, but instead opted for poignance. Not bad, in and of itself, but the book doesn't leave you, at the end, with the same rollicking humor of the rest of it.I will, however, immediately go and check out other books by this talented writer. Please do read this one. Not only is it well-written, but it's good-hearted from beginning to end - exactly what the doctor ordered for a fun weekend read!