American Love Story

American Love Story (2019) Adriana Herrera

This story is about three things: Patrice and Easton, boinking, and this sentence.

A black man had to always think about the space he was in.

Two of the three things about this book I really really liked. The third, as is well known, is not my thing.

There was a lot of boinking in this story.

A LOT of boinking.

Which made it difficult for me to really enjoy this story, since their relationship started with boinking, and was seemingly half boinking.

LET ME BE CLEAR. I’m not opposed to boinking or people writing about boinking. It’s just that for me the boinking is something I tend to zip through to get back to the story, so if there is a lot of boinking there is less of the stuff I am interested in.

So how does that affect how I felt about this story? It means I saw that the two had a strong physical attraction (obvs) but the emotional component felt lacking, because there seemed to be so little time for it, as the two dealt with their own issues and problems (which affected their relationship).

In other words, it felt like Patrice spent more time talking to his friends and his mother about Easton than he did talking to–and more importantly listening to–Easton. I understood the problems they had, and it was quite clear that the majority of those problems could be laid on Patrice. Enough so that I felt as if Easton gave in way to quickly in the end, considering how much misery Patrice had put him through.

Additionally, there were a lot of other things going on in this story, especially the issue of young men of color repeatedly being pulled over and harassed by the police. The story spent a LOT of time on that subject (as it should have because it’s a big and important subject that deserves to have time spent on it) and that is partially what made the emotional parts of the book feel so rushed. There was so much time spent on the police harassment, Easton’s job, Patrice’s job, and the boinking, there just wasn’t enough space left over for me to really believe Patrice’s emotional growth and change.

(T)he controversy he was talking about was my research focusing on how people of color experienced discrimination through government sanctioned public policy.

“The DA’s office and local law enforcement should be on the same page. They bring us the cases to prosecute, and if we can’t trust their judgement, it’s going to be a problem.”

I kept my answers short with my father. With him anything you said, could be (and usually was) used against you.

And there was also a story arc of two of Nesto’s employees, which was important and ALSO needed time spent on it.

That’s a LOT of material for 368 pages, and something had to give, and unfortunately for me, it was the emotional component of the story.

Does that mean this was a bad story? Very much no. But it did feel like the book was entirely too short for the sheer volume of stuff everyone had to deal with, and important things got rushed.

But it’s still a story well-worth reading. I just wish it could have been a little more.

Publisher: Carina Press
Rating: 7/10

• Browse the archives:
  
• RAFE: A Buff Male Nanny » »
• « « A Matter of Disagreement