Review: Perhaps there will be bluebirds
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 03 8, 2014
Memorizing You is a love story that will take hold and transform you like few others ever will. A story that speaks to everyone who has ever been in love or ever hopes to be.Ryan is a jock from a well-to-do family, and David is a loner from somewhat lower on the social scale. They become friends, discover they’re gay, and become lovers. They proceed like the teens they are, living as if they had all the time in the world. Most of the book covers their lives in the 60s, their high school, their friends, their growing love.  Then, unimaginable tragedy. And there is no more time at all.I “met” Dan Skinner today – well, yesterday. I saw some of his photos on the Internet and saw a sensitivity there that made me want to read every word he has ever written.  I started in the morning before work (not recommended), stumbled home and just finished. The clock says 3:00 a.m.  That’s how it goes when you’re in the hands of a master storyteller who can lead you to the gates of hell and then leave you there to discover a promise of rainbows. And bluebirds.I would have given this book 5 stars without blinking, but ... I couldn't help feeling that no teenager talks like this, thinks like this. Nearly all the characters are wiser and nobler than real people. But that wouldn't matter if there wasn't another element that I couldn't overlook. Aall too often, I’d be in the middle of a scene  and dammit! sloppy editing jerked me up short. I am not the grammar police. Far from it.  This review alone is more fragments than sentences. But please, Jae Ashley at Cerberus Inc., possessives for plurals? Wrong word errors? Fortunately, Skinner's book is too strong to be seriously damaged, but there are scratches and scuffs in an otherwise polished piece of work.