Loosing someone you care is always traumatic, but loosing him just weeks before the commitment ceremony that was supposed to be the beginning of a long-life together and exactly on the day your family disowned you for being gay is a little too much for future rabbi Andy to bear alone. He is lucky since, not only his late partner’s mother promptly substitutes the missing family, but also friends and colleagues support him. Plus Jack, the same nurse who took care of Mitchell the night of the accident is there to help and maybe also for something more.

The main theme of the story is: will Andy let his second chance at love to develop or will he consider that it’s too soon to be happy again? Jack probably approaches Andy in the right way since he doesn’t pressure him; not only that, Jack also recommends to Andy a therapist specialized in family loss, and she will greatly help Andy, especially since she will not stuck to the common theory that you need time to mourn before being able to truly love again.

Sure, there will be the more traditionalist reader that will think Jack is not really Andy’s true love, that Andy should mourn longer than barely some weeks, that is not possible that at less than one year since Mitchell’s death he is ready to move on with his life… all good reasons, but I also think that, it’s the quality of the time not its length that matters. It’s true that Mitchell was Andy’s love, and I’m sure that, if Mitchell didn’t die, they would be still together and more than happy; there was never once that I felt as Mitchell and Andy were not perfect together, and they fulfil each other completely. In this situation, Jack had no space, and if they had met him together, Jack would have been only a good friend. But Mitchell died, and Andy is still young and everyone wants for him to live again.

Maybe since he is a rabbi in training, and so probably he was taught to consider that everything happens for a reason, Andy is also able to detached himself from his pain and be able to rationalize; Andy is alive and as such he is allowed to be sad, but not to stop to live.

The novel has a warm feeling, even if, of course, it has also a bittersweet taste; the feelings, the colours, even the seasons are mostly “autumn”: warm given by wool jackets and blanket, green, brown and orange around, in the trees, grass and co (lot of walks in the park), Thanksgiving and other autumn Jewish festivities… everything tends to add to the autumn feeling, even the story between Andy and Jack, with Mitchell Andy was living his spring and summer, with Jack he is living his autumn and hopefully they will end together in the winter of their life.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1615815643/?tag=elimyrevandra-20

BOOK BLURB:
Andrew Klein is going through the motions of life. He was one half of a perfect couple, and then tragedy struck, leaving Andy alone and consumed by grief. While his friends rallied around him, Andy is estranged from his Orthodox Jewish family, who find his sexual orientation and desire to follow the tenets of the more modern Conservative sect of Judaism intolerable. Despite the loss, Andy continues in rabbinical school, and then he finds comfort in the company of Jake Singer.

With the encouragement of his dear friend Kira and the unselfish support of a wonderful mother figure, Andy begins to face his growing interest in Jake, and the two begin a tenuous relationship. It will cause a cascade of change in Andy's life, change that will affect how he deals with the painful past, how he lives in the rocky present, and how he'll plan for a brighter future.

BOOK REVIEW:
This is a story about hope, growth, and slow recovery, and above all about love - not just between Andy and Mitch, and then Andy and Jake, but between a whole chosen family, Claire and Kira, especially. A chosen family who not only embrace Jake, but who even help Andy and his brother work around the rift separating them from their blood family.

There's a lot of deep emotion here, positive and negative, and some of the scenes after Mitch's accident nearly moved me to tears. Unfortunately, for a story this rich in evocative events, that sense of connection with the main character didn't survive the sudden introduction of an alternate point of view character a third of the way through the book.

The irregular interludes where the narrative switches to Jake's perspective that pop up thereafter really disrupted the flow of the story for me, as well as drawing attention to some weaknesses. For example, while the story was limited to Andy's perspective, you could explain the lack of attention given to Kira and especially to Clare's emotional landscape as indicative of the all-consuming nature of Andy's grief. When alternate perspectives are available, though, it feels more and more like something that's just been left out. The author clearly knows their setting well, but the style kept me at a distance from the characters, so I was unable to really revel in Andy's journal from heartbreak to healing.

(Originally reviewed for Rainbow Reviews - http://www.rainbow-reviews.com/?p=7333) ( )