#steve kluger

[90smovies]

[haveyoureadthisbook-poll]

Have you read Last Days of Summer by Steve Kluger (1998)?

yes

no

I didn't finish it

I've never heard of it

Voting ended onMay 15, 2024

[bitesizebookreviews]

Almost Like Being in Love

RETRO REVIEW

Almost Like Being in Love

Steve Kluger

354 pages

William Morrow Books, 2004

Jock Craig McKenna and theater geek Travis Puckett fall in love in their last year of boarding school in 1978. They spend the summer together before Travis heads to USC and Craig to Harvard, where they quickly lose touch. Fast forward twenty years to 1998 and Travis, now a history professor in California (whose quirks include history/baseball mashups such as Alexander Hamilton and the invention of the Designated Hitter) with a string of failed relationships realizes the man he really loves, has always loved, is Craig. 1998 finds Craig a lawyer and activist in Saratoga Springs, NY with a boyfriend who hates his activism. Travis decides to find Craig and embarks on an epic road trip to see him again. The road trip includes such fiascos as breaking into Craig’s mom’s office to steal her rolodex, hitching a ride with a no-nonsense bar owner with a Buick who falls for Travis’s roommate, and falling deeply in debt to Neiman-Marcus before getting to New York and learning about Craig’s longtime boyfriend. 

Almost Like Being in Love is a book told in epistolary form - it’s all journal entries, letters, emails, inter-office memorandums, etc. While it works and it adds to the charm of this book (and it is very long on charm) there is a suspension of disbelief over such things as how people communicate by email and what they’ll actually put on an office memorandum. Still, the characters are fun and quirky. The love between the two main characters is believable, and the secondary cast are possibly even better - Clayton as Craig’s long suffering boyfriend, Charleen his law partner, Jody Kessler the minor-league first baseman trying to get custody of his son, Travis’s roommate Gordo, and AJ, the St. Louis bar-owner who falls in love with him via email. Did I mention how charming this whole book is?

1998 was probably one of the very last years this story could be told. By the year 2000 it would have been unbelievable that Travis couldn’t have done a quick Google (or, at the time Yahoo or Ask Jeeves) search and discovered Craig’s law office. So this book worked as a fun look into what it was like to find someone in the age before social media. It gets bonus points for not one, but TWO Brady Anderson references. Something that I, growing up an Orioles fan in the 1990s, certainly appreciate.  

*Added note. Back when I first read this book about twelve or so years ago, I fan-casted it (I still maintain it’d make a GREAT rom-com) with Tom Kavanagh as Craig, Justin Kirk as Travis, John Barrowman as Clayton, Toni Colette as Charleen, Aisha Tyler as AJ and I can’t remember who else. All those actors are now too old to play people in their late 30s, but how good would that have been at the time??  

[iiconicxpersona]

Not everyone enjoys reading for pleasure, but I do. If you love reading books and you’re interested in some summer reading, I recommend these three books. Definitely the best books I’ve ever read.

[90smovies]

Once Upon a Crime

[loveinquotesposts]

https://loveinquotes.com/falling-hard-for-somebody-makes-you-do-things-you-never-thought-youd-do-before-like-pulling-off-an-a-in-history-or-finally-facing-the-truth-about-yourself-%e2%80%95-steve-kluger/

Falling hard for somebody makes you do things you never thought you'd do before. Like pulling off an A in History or finally facing the truth about yourself ― Steve Kluger, Almost Like Being in Love

[vulpixbookpix]

Almost Like Being in Love by Steve Kluger

3 stars 

Dates Read: 12/30/18 - 01/02/19 This was a cute little book I read for my library's book club. It tells the story of Travis and Craig, who fall in love as teens in prep school. They have a magical summer before departing and, eventually, drifting apart as long distance relationships sometimes do. Twenty years later, Travis hears the song that was their song and realizes he still has feelings for his first love. He takes it upon himself to find Craig and, in a series of adventures that are akin to Lucille Ball, he manages to track him down... only to find out that Craig has been in a loving (though tumultuous) relationship for 12 years--even if the relationship is on the teetering edge of ending. Now Travis has a moral and emotional dilemma; does he encourage Clayton, Craig's beau who strikes up a friendship with Travis, to break up with Craig so Travis can claim his one true love as his own? Or does he help Clayton realize how lucky he is to have Craig in his life? The novel is told mostly through letters, forum posts, newspaper articles, and even a few court case documents. It was interesting to see the plot unfold in such a way. The book was a cute, light read that was perfect for relaxing after the holidays. It helps me complete the Book Riot Read Harder Challenge: "A epistolary novel or collection of letters" Pop Sugar Challenge: "A book with 'love' in the title"; "a book with no chapters, unusual chapter headings,"

[kimdias-blog]

I just completed my fourth? maybe fifth? reread of this, and it's still gorgeous and it's still funny and it still makes me cry my eyes out.