Cleanness by Garth Greenwell

Thursday, Sept. 29, 2022--San Antonio

Cleanness by Garth Greenwell is a novel that consists of parts that are like short stories regarding different points in the life of an American man teaching literature at the American College in Sofia, Bulgaria.  (In Europe a "college" is the equivalent of high school in the USA--the top grades before going off to study in university with the students being in their late teens.)  The main character has gone there because it is difficult to get a job teaching literature in the USA, and he has been given this chance in Sofia because it is mainly students who want to study in English so they can get admitted to top universities in Europe or the USA when they graduate.  He is loved by his students and he is attracted to some of them, but he is careful not to have any kind of personal relationship with them until after they have gone to university.  He is attracted to rough sex (BDSM) which is the topic of two parts of the book, but he learns at one point that a relationship based on love and tenderness is better and more desirable.  However, he cannot easily have a relationship in Sofia because he is gay and cannot openly show or declare his feelings without being in danger.  His one love develops when there is an intern who has come to the school for a semester as a part of his graduate studies at a Portuguese university.  But it is hard to maintain the relationship after the semester is over and he cannot find a job in Portugal or elsewhere so that they can be together and his partner cannot find a job in Sofia.  The stories are very well written; I found myself amazed at the way the words made me feel and how reading them gave me pleasure.  Except, I found the two stories of BDSM encounters were too detailed and too long; I almost quit the book after the first one, and I lost interest and scanned through a large part of the second one.  I wish I had just known that I could just skip both of them and still enjoy the book-- much more than I did by reading them.  I gave the book a rating of 4 stars out of 5.  

Here's to Us by Becky Alberttali and Adam Silvera

Thursday, Sept. 22, 2022--San Antonio

Here's to Us is the second of a set of two novels by Becky Alberttali and Adam Silvera.  I read the first book, What If It's Us, a couple of weeks ago.  I liked it with reservations.  This second is by far the better book in my opinion.  Continuing the story of Ben and Arthur who fell in love as 16-year-olds during a matter of weeks during the summer break between their junior and senior years of high school two years earlier, it has all the things that made the first book so good (the wonderful humorous dialog, the attraction story, etc.) while moving along and maintaining a higher level of interest throughout than the first book did.  I finished this one within a day and a half of starting it.  I can easily see the stories being used for a limited series on Netflix or one of the other streaming platforms.  I gave this book a whole extra star more than I did the first one--4 1/2 stars out of 5. 

The Secret Life of Albert Entwistle by Matt Cain

Tuesday, Sept. 20, 2022--San Antonio

The Secret Life of Albert Entwistle by Matt Cain is an adult gay fairy tale.  It has been reviewed in major magazines and listed among the best gay books of the year.  It is about a man who has worked for the postal service in England for 50 years.  As a youth, he and a school mate fell in love, but that was a dangerous thing at that time--illegal with prison sentences and families unwilling to accept a child being that way.  The experience was so good for Albert and at the same so bad, that he has lived his life since then mostly as a hermit--taking care of his abusive mother until she died and avoiding contact with others (co-workers, people on his delivery route, etc.) as much as possible.  But he has been told he must retire in 3 months as he ages out of the system at 65.  It makes him think about how lonely his life has been and to worry about what retirement will mean.  He starts making moves for the first time in his life since he was 15 years old to develop friends and to make amends of past mistakes.  It's a good book--well written with very sentimental underpinnings.  I gave it 4 1/2 stars out of 5.

What If It's Us by Adam Silvera and Becky Alberttali

Friday, September 16, 2022--San Antonio

What if It's Us by Becky Alberttali and Adam Silvera was interesting to read, but it wasn't exciting to read.  I much prefer previous books I have read by Adam Silvera.  This one is about a summer in New York where two young men who are longing for connection in their life meet in a post office line but fail to exchange contact information before they are interrupted by a flash mob band causing a disruption as a part of a marriage proposal.  All they know about each other are random details.  Both have had close friendships that have been disrupted--one because he has moved to New York with his mother to work as an intern at her law firm for the summer and the other because of sexual relationships that developed between members of their group and then failed.  Both young men want to find the other.  The intern knows that the NYC resident was there to mail a package to his ex-boyfriend and, due to a part of a label dropped on the floor during the flash mob entrance, that there is a 50% chance that his name is Hudson, but not necessarily since Hudson could have been the name of the addressee--the ex-boyfriend.  He also knows the name of a coffee shop that was on a t-shirt the NYC resident was wearing.   The other knows that the one he met is from Georgia, is an intern at his mother's law firm, and is doing the internship in an effort to get admitted to Yale after he goes home to complete his senior year of high school.  Both realize they want to re-connect with each other and use teenage techniques to do so such as searching with clues on social media and getting ideas from friends and family for other possible techniques.  It was an interesting story and the central characters and their friends were charming.  But there just wasn't enough there to make me feel that the story was worth more then 3 1/2 stars out of 5.

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2022--San Antonio

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro has received highly positive reviews.  The story is set in the near future in a society that has greatly changed from the present one.  Many adults are no longer needed as workers due to the advances in artificial intelligence.  Plus, a privileged segment of society has developed based on the use of genetic engineering to "lift" children who are essentially the only ones allowed to go to university because only the ones with the most capability will be needed in the changed job market.  But there are outlier--parents who choose not to have their children lifted, unemployed adults who have founded communes based on keeping their chosen society as white and male dominated, children who have not been lifted but have used their intelligence to learn and create on their own, etc.  The story is told by Klara, an "AF" (artificial friend)--a technical advancement by adding artificial intelligence to human lookalike robots designed to be bought to serve as companions to the lifted children who are home schooled by faculty over tablets.  She has been purchased by a mother who still is employed and is concerned because she has already lost one child to disease and whose remaining child is in poor health.  Klara can monitor her for health problems, provide companionship, and possibly be of eventual assistance to the mother via a plan which shows how drastic the mother is to save her daughter.  The other main characters are the immigrant woman who is the cook and has been overseeing the daughter during daytime, and a young boy the daughter's age who is not lifted and lives next door with his mother.  Both houses are far away from the polluted city with no other nearby neighbors.  One of the more interesting aspects of the story is that Klara, as an especially talented AF, is very observant and has advanced reasoning to the point that she develops a religion based on her reasoning and on her concern for her ill human child--a religion based upon the sun as the source of life and the savior of life through the strength its warmed provides. (She is solar powered herself.)  The story is well thought out and written, but it is revealed in a drip, drip, drip fashion.  I felt that the 400+ pages required more time than I wanted to give it.  I rated the book 3 1/2 stars out of 5. 

History Is All You Left Me by Adam Silvera

Thursday, Sept. 1, 2022--San Antonio

History Is All You Left Me by Adam Silvera is the second book I have read by this author.  Both have been on Top 10 and best seller lists, are classified as young adult novels (but should appeal to any adult who likes a well-written book), involve love and loss of life, and are probably on every Republican list of books to be banned from libraries due to having gay protagonists.  This particular book deals with first love, a person with OCD compulsions, the difficulties of maintaining a relationship when one partner moves far away, lies we tell and secrets we keep, the time and struggle required to deal with loss and move onward in life, etc.  It is a very good story with surprising new information toward the end that provides a twist and requires new interpretations of what has been read before and ties everything together to make the ending reasonable.  (However, the typesetting for the Kindle edition has an award and frustrating repetition of a space being added after the letter "f" inside every word!!)  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.