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macbean221b 's review for:
The Night Listener
by Armistead Maupin
This is the first of Maupin's work that I've read, but I don't think it will be the last. I enjoyed his style and found it easy to read, allowing me to focus on the characters and relationships instead of on big words and clever phrasing. I think that sort of writing has its place and I do love it but I think when you're trying to pack an emotional punch, simpler language is so much more effective. And the thing that I love about this story is that it's an absolute emotional roller coaster.
Writing partially from personal experience, Maupin gives his readers characters that you love or hate or love to hate, that you want to hug or slap or both in quick succession, that are sympathetic or at least understandable even if you want to give them a swift kick in the ass. Emotions and motivations are presented and explored in a manner that will keep you thinking about them between reading sessions, if you can bring yourself to put it down for that long.
What I took away from this book is something that I had already learned quite a while ago from Neil Gaiman: Things need not have happened to be true. Truth and fiction are sometimes so closely related that you really can't separate them, and sometimes fiction can be the truest thing in the world. Sometimes it just doesn't matter.
Writing partially from personal experience, Maupin gives his readers characters that you love or hate or love to hate, that you want to hug or slap or both in quick succession, that are sympathetic or at least understandable even if you want to give them a swift kick in the ass. Emotions and motivations are presented and explored in a manner that will keep you thinking about them between reading sessions, if you can bring yourself to put it down for that long.
What I took away from this book is something that I had already learned quite a while ago from Neil Gaiman: Things need not have happened to be true. Truth and fiction are sometimes so closely related that you really can't separate them, and sometimes fiction can be the truest thing in the world. Sometimes it just doesn't matter.