Review: Loved It
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 03 13, 2014
Here's the thing.  If you didn't read the description of this book and then are shocked to discover it's about a porn star/rent boy, I don't know what to tell you.  Justin Luke Zirilli has been one of my favorite authors since I stumbled across his book Gulliver Takes Manhattan last year.  He's smart and funny and has a real grasp on his craft.  Plus, he himself is a successful club/event planner in NYC and is a prominent part of the scene he writes about.  Gianni was more than a story about a porn star.  It resonated with me because it was written so deftly.  Was Gianni completely unlikeable for the first half of the book?  Absolutely.  But this was satire at it's best.  Zirilli is surrounded by gogo dancers and porn actors and he knows they put up a facade of arrogance when really there's a sweet boy underneath who just wants to be accepted and loved.  Gianni was over the top, yes, but he was a depiction of his porn/rentboy alter-ego.  When this facade gets broken down, we see the young man underneath.  Zirilli is a smart writer who is saying much more than it seems on the surface, and I, for one, cannot wait to read his next book.