Today I bring the review of another book that I read that surprised me a lot! We had two group meetings to discuss reading and I’m going to take advantage of everything we talked about to present this book to you. Let’s go?
Type A Love Story will tell us a type of love story the story of three teenagers who flee the standard of society in the 80s. The first of them is Reza, an Iranian boy who spent a troubled childhood in his country due to his father who lived involved in political conflicts of the time. Exhausted from this life, Reza’s mother decided to get a divorce and emigrate to Canada with her children. A while later, she marries a wealthy New York businessman and moves there to form this new family. Reza, in addition to feeling culturally out of place, still suffers a great internal conflict for being aware that he is gay.
The other protagonists of this story are two friends who live in New York. Art is a boy Reza’s age, but who is already openly gay and very daring for his time. Which causes a lot of inconvenience with his extremely rich and respected family. And, finally, we have Judy, Art’s best friend, a straight girl, but who deviates from standards for being fat.
The trio go to the same school and end up becoming friends. Reza is immediately attracted to Art (and vice versa), but in order to deny and contain his sexuality he ends up starting a relationship with Judy. The girl falls in love with her friend, who turns out to be a totally different boy from the others, being kinder and sweeter. This, added to the lack of being loved for the first time, makes her blind to any sign that what Reza feels for her is not what it seems.
With that we have the perfect context of a love triangle that is sure to be a lot of bullshit. For many people this is reason enough to want to read this story, but I know that for many others it is not. So what else does this book bring us different to be worth it?
One of the book’s greatest features are its many references to pop culture from the 80’s. Unlike Player Nº1 in which, in my opinion, the author makes a lot of mistakes in citing references exaggeratedly and in the worst possible ways, Abdi Nazemian manages to be soft here , bringing references at opportune moments in the narrative, without interrupting the reading. An interesting strategy that the author used to bring even more of the references he wanted, but without sticking everything in the middle of the story, was to place interlude cards between one chapter and another. So, if you’re curious, you can stop and read, otherwise just move on.
Another differential of this book is the LGBT political and social context of the time. They were going through the high point of HIV at that time. The author portrays not only characters suffering from the disease, but what fear and ignorance caused in the minds of young people like Reza, for example, which created a certain panic on the subject. As a bonus, the author includes some militancy that took place at that time, mainly against the abuses of the pharmaceutical industry. I think that of all the reasons, this paragraph is, without a doubt, the main one for you to go after reading this book!
One thing that surprised me in the book club discussions of this book was how each minor character was relevant enough to comment on. It’s really impressive how the author managed to insert them in order to add to the story and not just to add volume. The highlight, without a doubt, goes to Stephen, Judy’s uncle who is HIV positive and lost his husband to AIDS. The man is a great activist and an idol for our young protagonists.
Anyway, if you’re after an LGBT-themed book that goes a little beyond the discovery of sexuality and its implications, this is a great option!
