Product Description

Twenty years after falling in love their senior year and then drifting apart, Travis and Craig, the high-school athlete and the nerd, discover that something is missing in their lives and set out to discover what has happened to that first love. By the author of Last Days of Summer. Original.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #239822 in Books
• Published on: 2004-07-08
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 368 pages

Customer Reviews

lovely book
I thought this was a very charming book about gaylove. I couldn't stop reading, wanted to know how it ended. For me the style of the book (with letters and receipts) was not annoying at all. It makes it more special.

Disappointing.
This is an awful book. The language is uncomplicated and overly simple, but in spite of that the narrative and dialogue are tedious to get through. The manner in which the book has been written is so scatty that you find yourself struggling to concentrate out of sheer pointlessness of many portions of the story. The two main characters, we are to believe, a highschool nerd and highschool jock, are wholly unbelievable; the nerd would be more accurately described as an obsessive compulsive wallflower with a particular interest in musical theatre. There is nothing to distinguish the two in terms of their voice or action; nor really, to be quite honest, is there anything to discriminate between any of the other unneccessary accessory characters (who, anyway, add to the tediousness of the story than to make it more interesting to read). None of the characters have been very well developed by the author and one is left feeling incredibly wanting or even annoyed at the sheer monotony of it all. The style in which the book has been laid out (as a series of letters, memos and reports) could have worked very well indeed if the author had concerned himself to create a unique persona for each of the characters, however, instead, the discontinuous and fractured manner in which the story is unfolded appears ill-conceived and quite simply due to laziness on the part of the author. The author has a chance towards the latter half of the book to introduce some real tension and conflict between the main characters of the story, but fails miserably at doing so, as the characters seem to resolve their issues without expending much normal human emotion given the situation. I'm trying now very hard to find something positive to say about this story but i quite simply cannot... Good books i can, however, recommend are: Boy Meets Boy (do not be put off by its being a book for teenagers. The writing is very sharp and the story beautiful); The Dandelion Clock (a moving book of kindness and love..this book had me sad, laughing and at times angered); The Year of Ice (a very engaging book with a somewhat dissatisfactory ending, but i suppose that adds to the specialness of this book).

A Truly Different, but very Refreshing Book
What immediately sets "Almost Like Being in Love" apart from other books is that there is very little narrative. This wonderful story is told almost strictly through newspaper articles, faxes, e-mails, letters, diary entries and the "boyfriend checklist." Through these documents, we get a clear picture of the characters (their strengths, weaknesses, desires) and are invited into their world for a peek at their personal lives.

The story revolves around the unlikely first love of Craig McKenna and Travis Puckett. They run in different circles, Craig being a jock and Travis a fan of musicals, but are somehow drawn to each other until drifting apart when enrolling in different colleges. Some twenty years later, Travis decides to look Craig up and embarks on a wild adventure from California to New York in order to win him back. Meanwhile, Craig is about to marry his long time boyfriend, although secretly he's never quite gotten over Travis.

Upon finishing this book, I was left to reflect that maybe it is possible for love to survive against the odds.

"Almost Like Being in Love" is my first Steve Kluger novel, but it certainly will not be my last. It has been a very long time since a book has so impressed me that I have raved about it to all my friends and co-workers. I'd go so far as to say this is the most enjoyable book I've read in years!