fpwoper's review
3.0
I read this book before and enjoyed it a lot on my first read but I caught some iffy things in my reread which brought down the rating.
It's an okay romance book, but some minor things didn't really work for me. I guess that the legal age of consent might be 17, but a 17-year-old and a 29yo are still... an iffy and slightly not okay pair to me. Also, consent. When Raf tells Nate "No" initially, Nate ignores this. Not the way to go, tbh.
It's an okay romance book, but some minor things didn't really work for me. I guess that the legal age of consent might be 17, but a 17-year-old and a 29yo are still... an iffy and slightly not okay pair to me. Also, consent. When Raf tells Nate "No" initially, Nate ignores this. Not the way to go, tbh.
lauraadriana78's review
I'm going to forgo the ratings this time, and just write my thoughts on this book.
This book had an identity crisis, or at least that is what it felt like to me. I know that given the premise there must have been a point to be made. I just either didn't see it, or just didn't get it.
I'll explain. Israfel Vaceck is gay, he knows he's gay. He's also a devout Catholic, as a way of coping with his sexual preferences he goes into the priesthood. Hoping that the vow of celibacy and "life given to GOD" will help him stay away from sinning or giving into his "sick" impulses. For 10 years he enjoys priesthood, and is good at it. Until the day that the reasons he became a priest to begin with become something he can no longer ignore.
Israfel is assigned to a new parish in a small town, one of his altar boys a seventeen year old young man named Nate Mulligan is immediately a source of turmoil. He is attracted to Nate and the boy is not shy about letting him know he feels the same way. Nate is charming, sexy, smart and so in his face. So, they begin an affair that ends up changing everything for Israfel, and forcing him to face who he is.
Here is my issue with this book. I found it very hard to accept Israfel's behavior. No matter how repressed he was, or how much he was attracted to Nate. He was in fact a man in a position of power who was behaving EXTREMELY inappropriately with an underage boy.
I had to think a lot about this, but in the end I came to the conclusion that I could not just happily let this go for the sake of it being a romance where people got swept off their feet and consequences be damned. If this would have been a novel about a 29 year old woman having and affair with her 17 year old male student, I would have had a problem with that. If this would have been a novel about a 29 year old man having an affair with his 17 year old female babysitter, I would have had a problem with that. Why? Because as much as attraction and passion are strong and powerful things, people in certain positions have responsibilities and there are actions that are not excusable. Had he courted this boy and refrained from being physical until he was of age, or at least until he was sure that he had feelings of love for Nate I would have been a lot more OK with this book. There were so many times in the book that Israfel sounded and acted like a little boy, like the whole world was to blame for him doing the things he did. Like his lack of control was somehow something he was helpless to.
Do I have an issue with him being a priest and falling in love with an altar boy? Short answer is No. One of my biggest issues with the Catholic church, and there are MANY of them. Is their fucked up brand of "degaying therapy". Which in many cases consists of encouraging young men who are gay, to go into the priesthood. Not only is it wrong to make someone feel that they are sick or wrong for being who they are, but it is even more messed up to place them in a situation of entrapment. This is heavy stuff, there is a history that sorrounds this very issue in the Catholic church that is dark. So I had a very hard time reconciling this book's premise with the sweet, sexy happy ending this book had.
Do I think that Israfel didn't deserve to be happy because he made a mistake? Absolutely not. However I felt that he got away with a little too much.
This book made me think a lot about [b:Notes on a Scandal|123046|Notes on a Scandal|Patrick Marber|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1171847806s/123046.jpg|118465]. The whole idea of one mistake costing you your entire life. It's a heady thing and unfair as hell. But still do two huge wrongs make a right? And what kept nagging at me was the thought that once you blur the lines, then what is acceptable? Would it have been okay if Nate had been 16 and half, 15, but super mature?
There are reasons for these rules. I have a hard time just letting go of this for the sake of romance. I would have been happy with May-December romance set in different circumstances. The way things went with this one just felt a little too convenient for me. Not that I have a problem with convenient, I just felt that this book was setup to be thoughtful and dealing with some very strong themes and then kind of just went a completely different way.
That of course is just my opinion.
This book had an identity crisis, or at least that is what it felt like to me. I know that given the premise there must have been a point to be made. I just either didn't see it, or just didn't get it.
I'll explain. Israfel Vaceck is gay, he knows he's gay. He's also a devout Catholic, as a way of coping with his sexual preferences he goes into the priesthood. Hoping that the vow of celibacy and "life given to GOD" will help him stay away from sinning or giving into his "sick" impulses. For 10 years he enjoys priesthood, and is good at it. Until the day that the reasons he became a priest to begin with become something he can no longer ignore.
Israfel is assigned to a new parish in a small town, one of his altar boys a seventeen year old young man named Nate Mulligan is immediately a source of turmoil. He is attracted to Nate and the boy is not shy about letting him know he feels the same way. Nate is charming, sexy, smart and so in his face. So, they begin an affair that ends up changing everything for Israfel, and forcing him to face who he is.
Here is my issue with this book. I found it very hard to accept Israfel's behavior. No matter how repressed he was, or how much he was attracted to Nate. He was in fact a man in a position of power who was behaving EXTREMELY inappropriately with an underage boy.
I had to think a lot about this, but in the end I came to the conclusion that I could not just happily let this go for the sake of it being a romance where people got swept off their feet and consequences be damned. If this would have been a novel about a 29 year old woman having and affair with her 17 year old male student, I would have had a problem with that. If this would have been a novel about a 29 year old man having an affair with his 17 year old female babysitter, I would have had a problem with that. Why? Because as much as attraction and passion are strong and powerful things, people in certain positions have responsibilities and there are actions that are not excusable. Had he courted this boy and refrained from being physical until he was of age, or at least until he was sure that he had feelings of love for Nate I would have been a lot more OK with this book. There were so many times in the book that Israfel sounded and acted like a little boy, like the whole world was to blame for him doing the things he did. Like his lack of control was somehow something he was helpless to.
Do I have an issue with him being a priest and falling in love with an altar boy? Short answer is No. One of my biggest issues with the Catholic church, and there are MANY of them. Is their fucked up brand of "degaying therapy". Which in many cases consists of encouraging young men who are gay, to go into the priesthood. Not only is it wrong to make someone feel that they are sick or wrong for being who they are, but it is even more messed up to place them in a situation of entrapment. This is heavy stuff, there is a history that sorrounds this very issue in the Catholic church that is dark. So I had a very hard time reconciling this book's premise with the sweet, sexy happy ending this book had.
Do I think that Israfel didn't deserve to be happy because he made a mistake? Absolutely not. However I felt that he got away with a little too much.
This book made me think a lot about [b:Notes on a Scandal|123046|Notes on a Scandal|Patrick Marber|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1171847806s/123046.jpg|118465]. The whole idea of one mistake costing you your entire life. It's a heady thing and unfair as hell. But still do two huge wrongs make a right? And what kept nagging at me was the thought that once you blur the lines, then what is acceptable? Would it have been okay if Nate had been 16 and half, 15, but super mature?
There are reasons for these rules. I have a hard time just letting go of this for the sake of romance. I would have been happy with May-December romance set in different circumstances. The way things went with this one just felt a little too convenient for me. Not that I have a problem with convenient, I just felt that this book was setup to be thoughtful and dealing with some very strong themes and then kind of just went a completely different way.
That of course is just my opinion.
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