Title: Almost Like Being in Love
Author: Steve Kluger
Format: Novel
Published/Free: Published
Length: 354 pages
Status: Complete
Rating: Teen
Warnings: Warnings not provided
Link: http://www.stevekluger.com/ALBIL.html
Summary: A high school jock and nerd fall in love senior year, only to part after an amazing summer of discovery to attend their respective colleges. They keep in touch at first, but then slowly drift apart.
Flash forward twenty years.
Travis and Craig both have great lives, careers, and loves. But something is missing.... Travis is the first to figure it out. He's still in love with Craig, and come what may, he's going after the boy who captured his heart, even if it means forsaking his job, making a fool of himself, and entering the great unknown. Told in narrative, letters, checklists, and more, this is the must-read novel for anyone who's wondered what ever happened to that first great love.
Review: This is one of the funniest, most purely entertaining pieces of slash fiction I've ever read. Don't read this if you're looking for angst, catharsis, dramatic heart-wrenching passion, or emo teens. This is a romance of a different kind: all of the characters are mature, intelligent smart-asses who care about things: politics, other people, food, baseball, having their children marry doctors... This is a book about the journey, not the destination.
I loved the setup of the book: the first forty pages are Travis and Craig falling in love in high school, and then the book wrenches you forward to their lives as thirty-somethings without telling you exactly what happened. The reader feels the loss almost as much as the characters themselves (though gradually the reasons for the drifting-apart are explained). Both Travis and Craig have narrative sections, so you get both sides of the story. And the ending is absolutely perfect, just when the author has made you care about all the characters, even Craig's current boyfriend.
The book's epigraph, from the song "Almost Like Being in Love," tells you exactly how you'll feel after finishing it: "What a day this has been/What a rare mood I'm in..." Basically, I loved the book and I laughed my head off, and I hope you will too.
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