Trisha D. (lectio) reviewed on 8/20/2013 + 88 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 1

Such a thoroughly unsentimental book about what love is really all about especially how much it can hurt. The story unfolds in the voices of the most important characters and moves back and forth among them giving us glimpses into why they behave the way they do as well as how they view each other. Two of them, Bobby and Jonathan, have grown up together needing to depend on each other to deal with the residue of circumstances that have left them wounded and vulnerable. By the time they reach young adulthood and are re-united once again after having gone their separate ways for a while, their relationship is both complicated and strengthened by the presence of a third person, the quirky and somewhat jaded Clare whom they both love but in very different ways. The three of them are bonded together in what appears to the rest of the world to be the most unconventional of relationships which is further complicated when Clare gives birth to the baby that both Bobby and Jonathan consider to be theirs even though its obvious to the reader who the real father is. It is this dimension of the story that I found to be the most poignant since its so clear that the family the three of them have created is such a loving one. In fact if I were pressed to name the major theme of this deeply moving novel, Id say its all about what it really means to be a family especially when life makes it so difficult. All three of the characters in this novel are carrying heavy burdens that make it almost impossible for them to be who the others need them to be. In the hands of a less skillful author this book could easily have become pathetically maudlin especially the episodes that touch upon the tragedy of the AIDS epidemic. But Cunningham is a masterful writer who treats his characters with sensitivity and respect and gives them some wonderfully insightful lines, like this one: Our lives are full of things we cant control so letting little things happen is good practice.

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