Fotografía de autor
69 Obras 533 Miembros 3 Reseñas

Sobre El Autor

Dr Alessandro G Benati is Principal Lecturer in SLA and Head of the Department of Languages and International Studies at the University of Greenwich, UK. Professor Bill VanPatten is Interim Head at the Department of Spanish, French, Italian, and Portuguese at the University of Illinois at Chicago, mostrar más USA mostrar menos

Incluye el nombre: Bill Van Patten

Series

Obras de Bill VanPatten

Making Communicative Language Teaching Happen (1707) — Autor — 31 copias
Vistazos : un curso breve (2002) 11 copias
Language (2015) 3 copias
Sol y viento: En breve (2007) 3 copias
Communication and skill (2015) 2 copias
Looks Are Deceiving (2021) 2 copias
Destinos: Chapters 1-24 (1999) 1 copia

Etiquetado

Conocimiento común

Género
male
País (para mapa)
USA
Lugares de residencia
Chowchilla, California, USA

Miembros

Reseñas

The synopsis is very precise and on-point, so we go into this read with a clear roadmap of the journey. It's not suspenseful...it is compelling to me, whose experiences of life are very close to Arnie's minus the maternal alcoholism. Abandoned by a father whose selfishness was complete? Check! Emotionally abused by a codependent mentally ill mother? Check! Involved in an age-gap romance? Check!

I know from reading the author's bio that he's telling us a story rooted in his own gay-male experience. This comes through in many facets of Arnie's story, and none more clearly than the opening scene where Arnie is raked over the coals by his supervisor, Rachel, not for the first or even tenth time, in the cruelest and most belittling way. This sets the tone for the read: Arnie in an awful and humiliating position, painfully unable to defend or extract himself from it.

As the narration is all third-person limited, we're privy to all the ways the action mirrors his past abuse. It can feel a bit repetitive, but it definitely sets the stakes. This is a man with a huge hill to climb just to get up to "bad." When glimmerings of good things come to him, if he even recognizes them, he's immediately on the alert for the fuckening. This being a romantic story, we know this is what we're here to watch him triumph over.

And do that he does...he's handed a dinner invitation by his boss hot on the heels of his very public humiliation by Rachel, and of course is all set for it to turn into a fiasco...especially when he meets the boss's handsome, sparkling dominant nephew. Who is all of eighteen. And beautiful.

And interested in thirty-year-old Arnie.

That CAN'T be right.

What follows is the journey to self-acceptance and to learning about accepting acceptance. Arnie is, at long last, among people who want to be with him. That's an intoxicating feeling to someone not accustomed to it. Arnie blossoms into a happy, still-nebbishy middle-aged guy. I'd've been a lot less kind if he'd suddenly changed completely, but he's a better-adjusted version of himself at the end of the book—not someone suddenly tured into a confident, self-motivated dudebro.

I liked this read just fine, and appreciated its positive resolution that stayed within realistic outcomes. A lot of guys could identify with nebbishy Arnie Violet. His trajectory, while pat (as expected in this genre), is never incredible. It's a warm comforting thing to see this ordinary no one much get to live out his happy dream.

No matter how banal the dream may be.
… (más)
½
 
Denunciada
richardderus | Jun 4, 2023 |
Please don't pay money for this book; I'll send you my copy for free.
½
 
Denunciada
stricken | Nov 20, 2005 |
 
Denunciada
KylieM_PirateQueen | Jan 16, 2016 |

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Estadísticas

Obras
69
Miembros
533
Popularidad
#46,708
Valoración
3.0
Reseñas
3
ISBNs
152
Idiomas
2

Tablas y Gráficos