One Man Guy by Michael Barakiva

One Man Guy by Michael Barakiva

1.5 out of 5 stars

Another boring and disappointing novel…

I'm new to LGBT+ literature. I mean, I come from a country that doesn't really ‘promote’ this side of literature. I never noticed before I came to America that there were no exclusively M/M romance novels, lesbian literature, or anything of that sort on shelves where I came from.

But holey moley was I surprised by how good these books could be!! Openly Straight, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, and just recently, How to Repair a Mechanical Heart, literally blew me away with their greatness and their poise. These books aren't only captivating, but they are single handedly making up for all those years when gay literature was frowned upon and shunned.

So this why I HATE reading bad YA LGBT novels.

Whenever I do it just feels like the world is going to combust, and explode into the vast multiverse of nothingness. I'm not even exaggerating here. When you love a genre so much, it gets terrifyingly unsettling to read a huge miss where there is usually so much greatness.

2 stars.

I didn't hate this as much as I hated The Great American Whatever, but this book is such a waste. There is so much potential here, the foundation for this is strong and fertile. The story is just a big flop.

Alek is from a very strict and traditional Armenian family. High expectations are set by his parents, and by his older brother who just seems to be smarter and better than Alek in a lot of ways. So it's no surprise that his parents force him to attend summer school in order to get back on the honor roll. This also means that he would be missing the trip his family is planning to make, however he reluctantly agrees.

In summer school, Alek meets a bad-boy, skater dude, slacker kind of type named Ethan (Which totally isn't a cliché, **massive eyeroll**). Alek and Ethan quickly get in on, with Alek realizing he's gay along the way. They skip summer school to go on trips to New York, Alek gets a makeover, he gets into fights with his best friend Becky, blah blah blah boring boring, they fall in love. yippee.

Okay, that isn't really the full story, but saying more will mean giving away spoilers. And I'm kind of getting tired writing about how awful this was. The big conflict is totally expected, you can probably see it coming the moment Alek’s family goes on a trip, if you haven't already thrown the book into an oncoming truck or something.

WHY I DIDN'T LIKE THIS BOOK:

1) Alek's family were crazy dimwits: I swear to God, it's almost like being completely unreasonable and unnecessarily prejudicial is genetic in Alek’s family or something. His mom also keeps on saying: “These Americans” in a spiteful and ugly way. Which would actually be understandable if SHE WEREN’T AMERICAN!!! She's a second generation immigrant who was born in the States, yet she acts like she isn't even in the slightest bit aware of American culture. She doesn't even have a stated reason to be so spiteful towards the U.S, she just is. It's a trope that writers use all the time. They also completely abandon a family after learning that their Turkish, which probably registers on the scale of insanity as completely and utterly illogical.


2) The romance is a sham: It is such a boring love story. Just because two people come from ‘different worlds’ and have completely different ‘backgrounds’ doesn't mean that the romance is going to sizzle and pop as a result.


3) The plot was so obvious and plain: There is such an avid structure used in this book. And the book is completely boring. If this wasn't me while reading this book, I don't know what is:

WHY I LIKED THIS BOOK MORE REASONS WHY I DIDN'T LIKE THIS BOOK:

1) It's unnecessary: You'd think that a book about an Armenian boy coming to terms with who is and falling in love with his complete opposite would raise some questions, provide social commentary, and maybe even strike an essential conversation. But no. If there is a book that knows how to disappoint, it's this one. The same parents who literally left their friends abandoned during their holiday because they find out that they were are Turkish are the same people who absolutely do not mind their son being gay… Did I mention that this book is dumb? Because it is.


2) This book is dumb and actively mediocre: This book doesn't even try to be different. It's so ‘meh’, it's sickening.

3) These boys kiss like twice, or like once. I wasn't counting. Oh, and the one time they do kiss, they get interrupted by the whole family!!

Not recommended.