Reading Challenge for July: Every Time I Think of You

2014 Reading Challenge
July Challenge: Lovely RITA (past RITA winners or nominees)
Title: Every Time I Think of You
Author: Jim Provenzano
My Rating: 4 stars

Since I'm trying to keep this year's Reading Challenge books to all gay romances, taking titles from the Rita winners or nominees won't work for this month's challenge.  Maybe someday, but not this year, alas.

So where would I find award-winning and award-nominated gay romance books?  There are a few good choices, but my go-to site is the Lambda Literary Awards.

A short recap:  From 1989-2001 although Lambda gave awards, none were for romance per se.  This year's winner for gay romance is Into This River I Drown by TJ Klune, and although I haven't read it, I decided not to read it for this challenge.

Instead I chose the 2012 winner, Every Time I Think of You by Jim Provenzano, which was a self-published work.  I'd read the nominated Something Like Summer by Jay Bell, also self-published, and loved it, so I wanted to see if I would have chosen Provenzano's book over Bell's.

Now I know why Provenzano won, but I'm not sure if I agree with the choice.  Fortunately, Bell's Kamikaze Boys, another m/m romance I really enjoyed, won the award in 2013, so I didn't feel so badly that Bell lost in 2012.

While Provenzano's book is enjoyable after the first few chapters, it's the beginning chapters that really bothered me the most.  In them two boys go into the wooded area between their two very different neighborhoods in the middle of an Illinois winter to pull of their clothes and jack off.  They don't know each other, but spy what the other is doing and form a bond.

Not a bad opening volley, right?  It's clever, catches attention, and seems right enough for two teenage boys.  So what's my gripe?  The writing style which is overblown and pretentious.  Not only was it off-putting considering what was going on in the scene, but I was really afraid it would be used throughout the book.

I understand that the narrator is supposed to be a nerdy, word-smith geek, maybe even a precocious kid, but considering that the language choices and tone don't continue throughout the book, the beginning struck me as unnecessarily condescending considering that male teens might want to read this.

But I don't think that is why the book won the Lambda Award, even though many award-winning literary fiction works begin the same way.

I think the book won because it centers on one character's unexpected off-scene accident which makes him paraplegic.  Although the issue of gay men and paraplegia isn't really addressed in the book, I think the shock value of a young men in love romance turning down that path sealed its award.

True, because the book is a first person account from the boy who isn't injured, delving into the mechanics of how a young man lives and functions in a wheelchair isn't the focus of the romance.  Perhaps that's why Provenzano published the sequel, Message of Love, this March--in order to flesh out the parts that were missing in the original story.

No matter what his purpose, even with the quibbles I talk about here, Every Time I Think of You was a good choice as the Lambda 2012 gay romance of the year.  It took an established theme in a new direction and did it well.

Two Must-Read Books for Gay Teens

You'd think with only five months left before graduation that Foster High and its senior class would only have smooth sailing. If you really thought so, you haven't been following John Goode's series at all or you haven't been in high school for a very long time.

The previous book in the series, End of the Innocence (reviewed at All About Romance), brought the tales of Foster Texas High School through the first half of senior year when something cataclysmic occurred, an event so horrific that it reverberated through the tiny town of Foster.

Be warned: To get the most enjoyment out of this two-book look at Foster High's senior year, it's imperative to read the the books in order. Although readers will be brought up to date at the beginning of 151 Days, John Goode is making an incredibly important point in these books, a point that is blunted if one reads this book first and then decides to read the previous one.

The event from End of the Innocence is still on everyone's mind as the second half of senior year begins. And this tragedy is causing everyone to look inward.

Brainy Kyle Stilleno and baseball star Brad Graymark are still together, and Foster High's principal still resents their abnormal relationship being accepted by so many students, faculty, parents, and residents of Foster. The stir that Kyle and Brad made coming together has affected more than just the students, and past sins, especially the long ago death of a prominent citizen's son by a hit-and-run driver, are being dug up to join the pall that's fallen over the town from recent events.
Read the rest of my review at The Romance Reviews.

Finding Yourself in Freshman Year

The first year of college is always a year of change for eighteen-year-olds. For Lewis, it's a year of revelation as well in Jay Northcote's Not Just Friends.

Lewis moves from Kent to Bristol where he meets his flatmates, all of them freshmen. One young man in particular catches Lewis' eye. Max is an out-and-proud gay man which intrigues Lewis who has called himself straight rather than buck the tide.

As he hangs out with Max, Lewis begins to feel the latent twinges of homosexuality that he's been repressing since he had a crush on one of his lower form friends. Suddenly Lewis is questioning whether he's gay or not, and coming up with the answer that he is.

Meanwhile, he's hanging out with Max and agrees to be his friend, only to watch the handsome, charismatic Max get a boyfriend who, after a few nights together, dumps Max. Now when Lewis is ready to get serious about Max, Max decides he's off boyfriends and only wants to be Lewis' really good friend.

Jay Northcote explores the ups and downs of freshman year and the changes young people go through as their world expands. Because it's based on the British school system, the book will be particularly interesting to Americans who are in college or who've been through it since some events and people are quite recognizable and some are completely different. This is an added dimension to a sweet story that isn't terribly remarkable, but definitely enjoyable.
Read the rest of my review at The Romance Reviews.