Review: A smorgasbord for the emotional palate
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 07 7, 2012
Whenever I see a book that my friends and those whose reviews I follow rave about, I usually read it with an eye towards that "aha!" moment where I realize what it is they all found in it that made it such a special experience.In this case, it's not the characters, though they are quirky and unique enough to stay with the reader after the last line is read, both main and secondary. Milo is priceless! It's not the story itself, because not much actually happens, you know? In this sense, it felt a bit like "Seinfeld", nothing much happens from one day to the next. Still, it does have pretty good pacing, except for that prologue, which I'm still scratching my head over. It's not the setting either, because though we know it's NY, it's not really a protagonist in the story.You know what it is? The emotion, the feelings between Jake and Aaron, which could be physically felt by this reader as if they had real substance. Ever heard the phrase "you could cut the tension with a knife?", well I could taste the feelings growing between these guys, from page one. And I could hardly wait for the feast I knew was coming.At first, it was just an olfactory twitch, like when somebody three doors over and two floors down is brewing coffee, and the trace of scent wakes you up. The reader knows these guys were destined to be at least good friends, from the way they interact at the beginning. Then the taste strengthens and it's now on your tongue, when you see them accept and even enjoy the others' quirks and eccentricities. Bananas do feel kinda slimy to the hand, don't they?Then the palate starts picking up nuances in the flavor and it's all you can do to catch one and enjoy it before another one overwhelms you. And it keeps growing and becoming more complex and addicting until the sex/love/fusion scene, where the conflagration happens and the reader wonders if they will come out alive.If anybody has readLike Water For Chocolate (Mass Market Paperback), when Flip and Moz finally come together it's almost as dramatic as the last scene of Esquivel's book. Thankfully, they don't burn up, but it's a close thing. That scene? gave me my "aha!" moment and, IMHO, is worth the whole book.