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4.0 

Like a Love Story

By Abdi Nazemian
Like a Love Story by Abdi Nazemian digital book - Fable

Publisher Description

Stonewall Honor Book * A Time Magazine Best YA Book of All Time

"A book for warriors, divas, artists, queens, individuals, activists, trend setters, and anyone searching for the courage to be themselves.”—Mackenzi Lee, New York Times bestselling author of The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue

It’s 1989 in New York City, and for three teens, the world is changing.

Reza is an Iranian boy who has just moved to the city with his mother to live with his stepfather and stepbrother. He’s terrified that someone will guess the truth he can barely acknowledge about himself. Reza knows he’s gay, but all he knows of gay life are the media’s images of men dying of AIDS.

Judy is an aspiring fashion designer who worships her uncle Stephen, a gay man with AIDS who devotes his time to activism as a member of ACT UP. Judy has never imagined finding romance...until she falls for Reza and they start dating.

Art is Judy’s best friend, their school’s only out and proud teen. He’ll never be who his conservative parents want him to be, so he rebels by documenting the AIDS crisis through his photographs.

As Reza and Art grow closer, Reza struggles to find a way out of his deception that won’t break Judy’s heart—and destroy the most meaningful friendship he’s ever known.

This is a bighearted, sprawling epic about friendship and love and the revolutionary act of living life to the fullest in the face of impossible odds.

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470 Reviews

4.0
Diverse charactersMulti-layered charactersOriginal writing
“When I was in college, I dated a guy who had been born in Iran in 1975. His father saw the way his country was going, and sent his wife, their eldest son, and my ex-boyfriend S to Canada when S was still a baby. Eventually S made his way to the US and bought a condo where he, his stepmom, and his two brothers (the younger being his half-brother) lived. While we were dating, he would tell me about Iran, as his father spent half the year there on business, and I was lucky enough to be introduced to delicious Persian food. We did talk about the revolution, but I didn’t really press him on whether he lost any family members. So reading a book about a young boy who moves to Canada and then the US from Iran, right around the time my ex had done the same, resonated with me. I’m just a little younger than Reza in this book, but I vividly remember the AIDS crisis. I remember when Magic Johnson was diagnosed and some of his fellow basketball players didn’t want to play against him for fear he would “contaminate” them. I remember hearing about nurses that didn’t want to treat AIDS patients. I remember hearing that sex was a death sentence for gay men. And then I watched the show Pose when it came out, and it was all so familiar. I am glad books like this exist. Queer people have been through such trauma over the centuries, culminating in a health crisis that was ignored for many years by our government simply because people felt gay men deserved to die simply because they loved other men. I cannot wrap my brain around being a fun-loving gay man in the 1970s, perhaps having lots of casual sex because at least you can’t get anyone pregnant, and within a decade that fun sex now leads to directly to death. And all you see around you is death and dying, so many of your friends, your brothers, your ex-lovers, your chosen family. It’s important to remember that this happened, that we lost an entire generations of gay men that we didn’t have to bury, that those who survived have huge holes in their lives and their hearts. But I am also glad that there a lot of books on queer joy now, stories where people find their person, their absolute love, and they can express that joy and celebrate that love. It’s important to tell the traumatic stories, but just as important to celebrate the joy.”
“DNF (270p/360p) Sur les 3 personnages principaux je n’ai réussi a m’attacher seulement à Art. J’ai trouvé dommage de ne pas voir le personnage de Reza se déconstruire sur son homophobie intériorisé. L’histoire avait du potentiel mais aurait pu être mieux construite.”

About Abdi Nazemian

Abdi Nazemian is the author of Like a Love Story, a Stonewall Honor Book, Only This Beautiful Moment, The Chandler Legacies, and The Authentics. His novel The Walk-In Closet won the Lambda Literary Award for LGBT Debut Fiction. His screenwriting credits include the films The Artist’s Wife, The Quiet, and Menendez: Blood Brothers and the television series Ordinary Joe and The Village. He has been an executive producer and associate producer on numerous films, including Call Me by Your Name, Little Woods, and The House of Tomorrow. He lives in Los Angeles with his husband, their two children, and their dog, Disco. Find him online at abdinazemian.com.

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