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Boyfriend Material
by John Jeffrey
| List Price: |
$23.00 |
Unavailable for
purchase at this time |
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Hardcover
Publisher: Kensington
ISBN13: 9780758201027
Condition: USED - VERY GOOD
Notes:
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| Customer Reviews: |
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| Where Have All the Boyfriends Gone? |
| Customer Rating: 3 out of 5 |
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Jeffrey, John. "Boyfriend Material", Kensington, 2002.
Where Have All the Boyfriends Gone?
Amos Lassen
We've all had that feeling--why is there no decent boyfriend material? In "Boyfriend Material", John Jeffrey introduces us to four young men who try to get their love lives back on track. Each feels that in order to do this what he needs is a boyfriend. Carson St. John is the editor of "Throb" magazine, a modern fashion journal. When we first meet him he has just finished a romp in the hay with a hustler and just makes in to brunch with Danny Kimura, an entertainment lawyer, Nathan Williams, a gallery owner and Rob Cahill, a high school teacher. Each of the four are dealing with love problems. As we listen to what they have to say we realize that this book is going to be little more than a soap opera about boyfriends. The guys are friends on one hand but on the other they come across as bitch drama queens,
Carson is researching an article on the difference between hustlers on the east coast and hustler on the west coast. At the same time he is trying to maintain his relationship with his married boyfriend. Danny is sleeping with one of his clients who is in a boy band but he also sleeps with women to maintain the image that he is straight. Rob is in love with one of his straight students who sets him up with his father and Nathan, our token African American is being set up on lunch dates with women by his mother.
The plot is built around these four characters and it is pure fluff--but that is just fine for a light and fun reading experience. Jeffrey writes about pop culture and everything is nicely tied into a sweet little bow at the end. There are some real life issues presented here--unsafe sex, differences in income, professional ethics). However this is not a book about the average gay man. The characters are buff and good looking so I guess we cannot classify this as the literature of social change--it makes no pretense of being anything more than a fun novel. While depth is missing, it is an escapist look at gay life.
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| meh... |
| Customer Rating: 2 out of 5 |
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You know, I'm all for the occassional fun, easy read where you need not think much. And in that area, this book does a decent job. I will say, some of it just comes off as entirely unbelievable and not all that clever. But I'm willing to overlook that and the fact that this Sex & The City knock-off didn't even have four original careers for the characters. My major grievance with it is the ceaseless product placement. There are so many better ways of describing a pair of shoes, a suit, or a wrist watch than the brand name. All that name dropping as an alternative to actual description is just lazy writing. If no one has told John Jeffrey this, someone ought to. I considered counting each mention of a designer, but even at ~200 pages, that's just too much work in this case. I'd be more upset about paying for the book if I hadn't gotten it half price at a used book store.
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| Absurdly Bad: An Assault on the Written Word |
| Customer Rating: 1 out of 5 |
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This book is a very long commercial advertisement. People say "pop-culture references"? Try to swallow this line: "Carson's Motorola Timeport two-way smart pager beeped." As a writer myself this is an insult to everything I hold dear, and at least for this gay man, "everything I hold dear" does not mean the latest pair of Prada shoes.
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| Funny, campy, light but could have had more |
| Customer Rating: 3 out of 5 |
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I would agree with another reviewer that this has a sort of a "Sex and the City" feel to it, with gay guys as the central theme. It is an amusing romp that attempts to be a deeper story. Relationships are at the core of the plot, and Carson's affair with a married man is probably the best element of suspense.
I just wish there had been a little more depth. These characters were a little lightweight, with a seemingly-obligatory mix of races and gay-stereotyped personalities. However, don't let this stop you if you want a fun read, as they say, for the "beach or plane." It certainly is escapist and fills the bill that way. But I wouldn't buy a sequel.
By the way, the main character Carson's experiences working for a magazine are right out of dreamland. He seems to be able to do anything he wants whenever he wants with however much money he wants. It's all fun, powerful and enriching in this book. Don't be fooled. I've worked on major NY magazines--there are no Helen Gurley Brown's anymore! Magazine editors are idealistic, underpaid and overworked people.
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| Improbable plot twists propped up by pop culture references |
| Customer Rating: 2 out of 5 |
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I usually like dumb and fun gay novels, but this one was too dumb for me. Several of the main subplots make twists near the end that are cliche and yet completely inconsistent with the character development in the first half of the book, which made it difficult for me to finish this book. The pop culture references also seemed gratuitous, as in "any gay person reading this book would be impressed by meeting the lead member of N-Sync."
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