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jimmybobby's review against another edition
4.0
Loved the older man/younger boy affair. Struck home, really nailed some of my experiences. Actually that reminds me of a lesson learned I have to do something about...
The biggest success of this book is not character development or story line, but the creation of Florida and its natural/human environments as prominent and real figures. I've never been there myself but I sure feel like I have a true sense of the place: its decay, its promise, its beauty, and its oppressive weather.
The biggest success of this book is not character development or story line, but the creation of Florida and its natural/human environments as prominent and real figures. I've never been there myself but I sure feel like I have a true sense of the place: its decay, its promise, its beauty, and its oppressive weather.
bookboy_troy's review
5.0
“Something was ringing inside my head, a fire alarm. You can change your life, you can”
Lawnboy by Paul Lisicky is a perfect coming of age novel. I couldn’t have picked a better book to read this summer. First published in 1998 and reprinted by Graywolf in 2006, this hidden gem is way overdue to be republished/reprinted so it can find a whole new era of queer readers (I wish I knew how to make this happen??) it’s definitely got the air of a queer cult classic to it. It felt like a similar reading experience to me as when I read Nevada by Imogen Binnie summer of last year. I will cherish the time I’ve read this for a long time.
Lisicky writes the character of Evan with such complexity and nuance. He brilliantly captures the narrative voice of a 17-year-old gay man trying to come into his own in the world in the early 90s in southern Florida. The prose was so vibrant, melancholic, lush; basically, every page had these knockout sentences where I would sit and marvel at the way Lisicky crafted them. How Florida is depicted was spot on - the hellish heat, the kitschy tourist traps, hotels against a harsh yet at times beautiful landscape. The push and pull of the plot and characters in Evan’s world made the novel’s pacing fantastic.
Naturally, this book brought me right back to being that same age where I knew everything and nothing about myself and the world. When I was impressionable, looking for love, for friends, for a place in the world where I felt safe and I belonged. An era of mistakes, awkwardness, finding a way forward. The cringey thoughts and opinions. This book was perfect to me, I only wish I could have read it earlier in my life.
My only hope is that I can introduce this book to more and more readers. Since it’s out of print, I found my copy at ThriftBooks. It was an ex-library copy and it felt really special knowing it had passed through the hands of so many readers before me. I can’t wait to read more of Lisicky’s work.
Lawnboy by Paul Lisicky is a perfect coming of age novel. I couldn’t have picked a better book to read this summer. First published in 1998 and reprinted by Graywolf in 2006, this hidden gem is way overdue to be republished/reprinted so it can find a whole new era of queer readers (I wish I knew how to make this happen??) it’s definitely got the air of a queer cult classic to it. It felt like a similar reading experience to me as when I read Nevada by Imogen Binnie summer of last year. I will cherish the time I’ve read this for a long time.
Lisicky writes the character of Evan with such complexity and nuance. He brilliantly captures the narrative voice of a 17-year-old gay man trying to come into his own in the world in the early 90s in southern Florida. The prose was so vibrant, melancholic, lush; basically, every page had these knockout sentences where I would sit and marvel at the way Lisicky crafted them. How Florida is depicted was spot on - the hellish heat, the kitschy tourist traps, hotels against a harsh yet at times beautiful landscape. The push and pull of the plot and characters in Evan’s world made the novel’s pacing fantastic.
Naturally, this book brought me right back to being that same age where I knew everything and nothing about myself and the world. When I was impressionable, looking for love, for friends, for a place in the world where I felt safe and I belonged. An era of mistakes, awkwardness, finding a way forward. The cringey thoughts and opinions. This book was perfect to me, I only wish I could have read it earlier in my life.
My only hope is that I can introduce this book to more and more readers. Since it’s out of print, I found my copy at ThriftBooks. It was an ex-library copy and it felt really special knowing it had passed through the hands of so many readers before me. I can’t wait to read more of Lisicky’s work.
sshabein's review against another edition
3.0
Is it fair to compare one writer to another? Is the comparison ever quite right? Blurbs for Lawnboy compared Paul Lisicky to [a:Michael Cunningham|1432|Michael Cunningham|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1198584594p2/1432.jpg] (The Hours, A Home at The End of the World, etc.), and the cover even boasted a blurb from Cunningham himself. While certainly flattering, how does Lawnboy compare?
Non-straight characters? Check.
Coming of age/awakening type plot? Check.
Complicated romance? Checkity-check-check.
But couldn’t one say this about plenty of other books? Francesca Lia Block also had these things, but Wheetzie Bat and Lawnboy and The Hours are three entirely different books. Then again, it’s been a little while since I’ve read Cunningham’s work. Still, there is one clear way that Lisicky and Cunningham reminded me of each other: It took me the first third of the book to really get into it. That’s not to say I spent the first third uninterested; I just questioned how much I would enjoy the whole thing. Lawnboy is divided into three parts, and by Part 2, I became much more engaged in how things turned out.
I enjoyed Lawnboy well enough that I will keep an eye out for Lisicky’s other work. The lingering, awestruck descriptions of physicality, and the unabashed searches for affection were enough to make me want more. It doesn’t matter whether Paul Lisicky writes anything like Michael Cunningham — Let the man stand on his own.
(Full review can be found at Glorified Love Letters.)
Non-straight characters? Check.
Coming of age/awakening type plot? Check.
Complicated romance? Checkity-check-check.
But couldn’t one say this about plenty of other books? Francesca Lia Block also had these things, but Wheetzie Bat and Lawnboy and The Hours are three entirely different books. Then again, it’s been a little while since I’ve read Cunningham’s work. Still, there is one clear way that Lisicky and Cunningham reminded me of each other: It took me the first third of the book to really get into it. That’s not to say I spent the first third uninterested; I just questioned how much I would enjoy the whole thing. Lawnboy is divided into three parts, and by Part 2, I became much more engaged in how things turned out.
I enjoyed Lawnboy well enough that I will keep an eye out for Lisicky’s other work. The lingering, awestruck descriptions of physicality, and the unabashed searches for affection were enough to make me want more. It doesn’t matter whether Paul Lisicky writes anything like Michael Cunningham — Let the man stand on his own.
(Full review can be found at Glorified Love Letters.)
eriknoteric's review
5.0
Gay bildungsromans are a dime-a-dozen these days, but Paul Lisicky's "Lawnboy," a story of coming of age, gay, in South Florida, is the truest, purest, most thoughtful of the genre that I've ever encountered.
"Lawnboy" follows the story of a boy who at the ripe age of 17 abandons home to move in with his much, much older neighbor. Though the sex between them is amicable, eventually he realizes something is missing, and he moves out to find his brother. As he rediscovers his relationship with his brother, he falls in love with Hector, though whether he is loved back is much shrouded. In the end he sets out again in search of himself and what he finds is bruised and battered but not beyond repair. At the end of the day, "Lawnboy" is about finding your queer self in ways you never could have expected, and it's about loving yourself in ways you never would have thought possible.
Written in 1998, "Lawnboy" has stood the test of time and is as true and important today as it was before the turn of the century. Lisicky captures the tensions, dramas, and turmoils of coming to fully know and appreciate your gay self in a way that few, if any, other gay writers have managed. For this reason, and many others, I'm already excited to read this book over and over again.
"Lawnboy" follows the story of a boy who at the ripe age of 17 abandons home to move in with his much, much older neighbor. Though the sex between them is amicable, eventually he realizes something is missing, and he moves out to find his brother. As he rediscovers his relationship with his brother, he falls in love with Hector, though whether he is loved back is much shrouded. In the end he sets out again in search of himself and what he finds is bruised and battered but not beyond repair. At the end of the day, "Lawnboy" is about finding your queer self in ways you never could have expected, and it's about loving yourself in ways you never would have thought possible.
Written in 1998, "Lawnboy" has stood the test of time and is as true and important today as it was before the turn of the century. Lisicky captures the tensions, dramas, and turmoils of coming to fully know and appreciate your gay self in a way that few, if any, other gay writers have managed. For this reason, and many others, I'm already excited to read this book over and over again.
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