Review: Love story with an important history lesson
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 02 9, 2014
This book had one of the most beautiful HEAs I've read in a while. Not only do the two MCs find happiness together, they also are able to try to alleviate some injustices in the past. You know they are going to go forward not just in love with each other, but making the world a better place!Will is a graduate student who has taken a job as a caretaker for an abandoned complex that used to house a large insane asylum in a remote part of California. He is a gay man who had gone through "reparative" therapy when younger, and was trying to live his life as a heterosexual, but after 6 years of marriage, he just couldn't do it anymore. He isn't looking for love, he just wants solitude and a roof over his head as he works on his dissertation, and this job fits the bill.Colby is an unapologetically and flamboyantly gay man who has come back to the tiny rural town he grew up in to help his family, and because he became disillusioned with big city life and the emptiness of casual hookups. He is open, honest, exuberant, and wants to share all that with Will. If he can get Will to accept him, and if he can accept that Will might want him back.And then there is Bill. He was a man incarcerated in the asylum in 1938 for sexual perversion and homosexuality after being charged with sodomy. He wrote beautiful letters to his lover, and hid them in a tin box hidden in the wall of his room. Though he was essentially abused and tortured (in the name of medical science, of course), he maintained his faith in love. He becomes an inspiration to both Will and Colby, and they work together to unearth the mystery of his life. His letters were my favorite part of this novel, even though his ending was tragic.I couldn't decide between 4 and 5 stars for this book. I loved how the story moved forward, how Will grew into himself, and I especially loved the background story of Bill. [SPOILER] Really the only thing that didn't sit right with me was Colby's insistence upon walking away from Will so he could play the field. I see that the suffering this caused Will also helped him to mature and define himself, but it just seemed inconsistent with Colby's character, and it bothered me. So I took off a star. This book did make me thankful to live in America, in 2013, and reinforces how we need to support and advance LGBT rights -- we've come a long way, but there is still a long way to go. . .