A review by alonepeanut
One Man Guy by Michael Barakiva
1.0
I actually wrote a review of this one back when I read it 4 years ago but I initially gave it 3 stars because back then if a book was 'readable' (basically I was able to actually finish it) I thought I should give it at least a 3 star.
I did delete that review once I revised the rating, realising I was being too generous. My rating for this sits between 1 and 2 stars.
What I thought was good: this was clearly very personal for the author and I respect that
What I hated: that can be summarised in the "how do you do fellow kids" vibes this book gave off. This author I can only assume was born into this world an already grown adult and decided to learn all about youth culture via cliche 80's high school movies.
At one point a group of boys make a whole stink about how no girls can sit with them because girls are icky. These characters are meant to be 16 not 6.
At another point the relationship between the main two headed in a more sexual direction which would be fine except if you removed all references to how old the characters were meant to be I could so easily believe I was reading about 12 year olds.
And then to top that all off at the end of the books the main character; Alek, decided to host a big family dinner inviting everyone including his boyfriend Ethan to make amends over the plot drama that had occurred in the last 50 pages, and it's his best friends job to make sure Ethan arrives to said dinner.
Luckily best friend is able to persuade Ethan to come and they all have a great happy time, but how did best friend persuade Ethan? that's the question on everyones lips
best friend challenged Ethan to beat her in a race on roller blades and if he lost he had to go the dinner...
It's a realistic contemporary YA romance book, so challenging someone to a roller blade race to convince them to go to the big happy end of book scene is so bizarre and wild to me.
Edit: best friend was on roller blades, Ethan was on a skateboard
I did delete that review once I revised the rating, realising I was being too generous. My rating for this sits between 1 and 2 stars.
What I thought was good: this was clearly very personal for the author and I respect that
What I hated: that can be summarised in the "how do you do fellow kids" vibes this book gave off. This author I can only assume was born into this world an already grown adult and decided to learn all about youth culture via cliche 80's high school movies.
At one point a group of boys make a whole stink about how no girls can sit with them because girls are icky. These characters are meant to be 16 not 6.
At another point the relationship between the main two headed in a more sexual direction which would be fine except if you removed all references to how old the characters were meant to be I could so easily believe I was reading about 12 year olds.
And then to top that all off at the end of the books the main character; Alek, decided to host a big family dinner inviting everyone including his boyfriend Ethan to make amends over the plot drama that had occurred in the last 50 pages, and it's his best friends job to make sure Ethan arrives to said dinner.
Luckily best friend is able to persuade Ethan to come and they all have a great happy time, but how did best friend persuade Ethan? that's the question on everyones lips
best friend challenged Ethan to beat her in a race on roller blades and if he lost he had to go the dinner...
It's a realistic contemporary YA romance book, so challenging someone to a roller blade race to convince them to go to the big happy end of book scene is so bizarre and wild to me.
Edit: best friend was on roller blades, Ethan was on a skateboard