Almost Like Being in Love

Surprisingly easy to follow, the characters were so funny and relatable, full of action, mistakes, and grand gestures. This books was so many levels of extra that I just loved so much, I finished it in one sitting, started reading at 10pm finished it at 6am, honestly I could not put it down.

Everyone remembers their first love. The one who woke their heart, the one that made their breath stop. The one that made your heart beat. The one that got away. What if you could have another chance at that love? Would you take it? It is 1978. Travis and Craig attend the same finishing school, though they are in different crowds. Travis is the school nerd while Craig is the school jock. They go in completely different circles until fate brings them together. While working on the play Brigadoon together, they spark something inside each other. Soon, the two of them fall in love and begin to explore everything possible about the other person. They decide, that summer, to rent an apartment in the city so that they can be together. What follows is the most wonderful summer of either of their lives, but all good things must come to an end. They are each going to different colleges: Travis to UCLA and Craig to Harvard. They know that at the end of the summer, it will be goodbye. Though they write to each other at first, the letters soon die out and they lose contact with each other. Flash forward twenty years. It is now 1998. Craig is a lawyer with his own firm and Travis is teaching history at his alma mater. Craig is living with his boyfriend, Clayton and Travis is still searching for love. He begins to think back to a summer he has never quite forgotten; to the boy he first loved. Doing something completely uncharacteristic, Travis decides to go on a cross country trip to find Craig and let him know that he is still the man of his dreams. He breaks into Craig's mother's office to find Craig's address and then he is on his way, with help from his best friend Gordo, a wise cracking waitress named A. J. and even Clayton. When you're in love, it's impossible to stay apart for long... This is one of the best books I have ever read, period. My run down of the plot doesn't even begin to describe "Almost Like Being In Love". Not even close. Much like his previous bestseller, "Last Days of Summer", "Almost Like Being In Love" is told in a series of narrative, checklists, journal entries, emails and letters that give the book a fast pace and a wonderful sense of charm. Because we are allowed to glimpse their world through their journal entries and emails, etc, the characters are vividly drawn and instantly human. Anyone can identify with the characters in these pages. Anyone who has ever loved will love this book. It's touching, wonderfully funny and actually made me cry in a few places when I remembered my first love. This book is also laugh out loud funny. I'm serious. I've seen that tag line on books often enough and usually I'm disappointed. I don't even giggle. "Almost Like Being In Love" made me laugh so hard at one point I cried and snort so loud at one point, I think I gave my cat a heart attack. What did I find so funny? You're going to have to read the book to find out. What else can I say? It's that good, you won't be disappointed. Read it

What immediately sets "Almost Like Being in Love" apart from other books is that there is very little narrative. This wonderful story is told almost strictly through newspaper articles, faxes, e-mails, letters, diary entries and the "boyfriend checklist." Through these documents, we get a clear picture of the characters (their strengths, weaknesses, desires) and are invited into their world for a peek at their personal lives. The story revolves around the unlikely first love of Craig McKenna and Travis Puckett. They run in different circles, Craig being a jock and Travis a fan of musicals, but are somehow drawn to each other until drifting apart when enrolling in different colleges. Some twenty years later, Travis decides to look Craig up and embarks on a wild adventure from California to New York in order to win him back. Meanwhile, Craig is about to marry his long time boyfriend, although secretly he's never quite gotten over Travis. Upon finishing this book, I was left to reflect that maybe it is possible for love to survive against the odds. "Almost Like Being in Love" is my first Steve Kluger novel, but it certainly will not be my last. It has been a very long time since a book has so impressed me that I have raved about it to all my friends and co-workers. I'd go so far as to say this is the most enjoyable book I've read in years!

Saying a book is a summer book usually means it's fun, but brainless. Nothing could be further from the truth when talking about Almost Like Being In Love. Mr. Kluger's book is certainly fun and easy to read, but what makes it a summer book is the heartwarming, breezy tale of a love that has to be despite the odds against it. Like Last Days of Summer (Mr. Kluger's previous book) Almost is cleverly told through an endlessly imaginative array of emails, letters, newspaper clippings, menus, and, my favorite, the boyfriend checklist. The more I read of the book, the more I wanted to learn how everything turned out, especially since Mr. Kluger set himself the challenge of giving us a happy ending when someone had to be hurt at the end. Yet, he does it and you walk away from Almost Like Being in Love feeling that life can be great and love does sometimes win in the end. I hope that this book is as big a hit as Last Days of Summer despite it's gay content. Only a grinch (or conservative Republicans as I call them) could not read this book and feel good at the end.

I devoured this book and found myself getting miffed at life's duties that took me away from it (sleeping, driving kids, making meals, etc.) I would have read it all in one sitting had I only been able to.Steve Kluger can take baseball and flagrant, in-your-face gayness (two subjects that probably wouldn't jump off the bookshelf at me) and make me beg for more. Kluger's ability to use nonconventional ways to portray his characters is uncanny. His characters are intriguingly developed and brought to life through diary entries, faxes, memos, emails, menus, and even court documents. His ability to create a cohesive story with only a miniscule amount of narrative is wondrous. Very few authors could have made this strategy work, and Kluger was clearly successful! Kluger's affection for his characters is clear and contagious. He makes them all very human and he deals with their foibles with endearing warmth and humor. He also demonstrates to us that this conglomeration of varied characters is a family in the true sense of the word. The amount of caring and compassion and acceptance illustrated in this book could easily be a lesson to all of us, no matter what orientation, preference, gender, religion, or politics we follow. Although it doesn't initially look or sound like it, this is a book about family values, friendship, support, and loyalty.