sshabein's review against another edition
3.0
Is it fair to compare one writer to another? Is the comparison ever quite right? Blurbs for Lawnboy compared Paul Lisicky to [a:Michael Cunningham|1432|Michael Cunningham|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1198584594p2/1432.jpg] (The Hours, A Home at The End of the World, etc.), and the cover even boasted a blurb from Cunningham himself. While certainly flattering, how does Lawnboy compare?
Non-straight characters? Check.
Coming of age/awakening type plot? Check.
Complicated romance? Checkity-check-check.
But couldn’t one say this about plenty of other books? Francesca Lia Block also had these things, but Wheetzie Bat and Lawnboy and The Hours are three entirely different books. Then again, it’s been a little while since I’ve read Cunningham’s work. Still, there is one clear way that Lisicky and Cunningham reminded me of each other: It took me the first third of the book to really get into it. That’s not to say I spent the first third uninterested; I just questioned how much I would enjoy the whole thing. Lawnboy is divided into three parts, and by Part 2, I became much more engaged in how things turned out.
I enjoyed Lawnboy well enough that I will keep an eye out for Lisicky’s other work. The lingering, awestruck descriptions of physicality, and the unabashed searches for affection were enough to make me want more. It doesn’t matter whether Paul Lisicky writes anything like Michael Cunningham — Let the man stand on his own.
(Full review can be found at Glorified Love Letters.)
Non-straight characters? Check.
Coming of age/awakening type plot? Check.
Complicated romance? Checkity-check-check.
But couldn’t one say this about plenty of other books? Francesca Lia Block also had these things, but Wheetzie Bat and Lawnboy and The Hours are three entirely different books. Then again, it’s been a little while since I’ve read Cunningham’s work. Still, there is one clear way that Lisicky and Cunningham reminded me of each other: It took me the first third of the book to really get into it. That’s not to say I spent the first third uninterested; I just questioned how much I would enjoy the whole thing. Lawnboy is divided into three parts, and by Part 2, I became much more engaged in how things turned out.
I enjoyed Lawnboy well enough that I will keep an eye out for Lisicky’s other work. The lingering, awestruck descriptions of physicality, and the unabashed searches for affection were enough to make me want more. It doesn’t matter whether Paul Lisicky writes anything like Michael Cunningham — Let the man stand on his own.
(Full review can be found at Glorified Love Letters.)
eriknoteric's review
5.0
Gay bildungsromans are a dime-a-dozen these days, but Paul Lisicky's "Lawnboy," a story of coming of age, gay, in South Florida, is the truest, purest, most thoughtful of the genre that I've ever encountered.
"Lawnboy" follows the story of a boy who at the ripe age of 17 abandons home to move in with his much, much older neighbor. Though the sex between them is amicable, eventually he realizes something is missing, and he moves out to find his brother. As he rediscovers his relationship with his brother, he falls in love with Hector, though whether he is loved back is much shrouded. In the end he sets out again in search of himself and what he finds is bruised and battered but not beyond repair. At the end of the day, "Lawnboy" is about finding your queer self in ways you never could have expected, and it's about loving yourself in ways you never would have thought possible.
Written in 1998, "Lawnboy" has stood the test of time and is as true and important today as it was before the turn of the century. Lisicky captures the tensions, dramas, and turmoils of coming to fully know and appreciate your gay self in a way that few, if any, other gay writers have managed. For this reason, and many others, I'm already excited to read this book over and over again.
"Lawnboy" follows the story of a boy who at the ripe age of 17 abandons home to move in with his much, much older neighbor. Though the sex between them is amicable, eventually he realizes something is missing, and he moves out to find his brother. As he rediscovers his relationship with his brother, he falls in love with Hector, though whether he is loved back is much shrouded. In the end he sets out again in search of himself and what he finds is bruised and battered but not beyond repair. At the end of the day, "Lawnboy" is about finding your queer self in ways you never could have expected, and it's about loving yourself in ways you never would have thought possible.
Written in 1998, "Lawnboy" has stood the test of time and is as true and important today as it was before the turn of the century. Lisicky captures the tensions, dramas, and turmoils of coming to fully know and appreciate your gay self in a way that few, if any, other gay writers have managed. For this reason, and many others, I'm already excited to read this book over and over again.
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