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With Or Without You (2011)

by Brian Farrey(Favorite Author)

3.93 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

1442406992 (ISBN13: 9781442406995)

languge

English

genre

Romance

publisher

Simon Pulse

review 1: I was compelled to read this book because it was set in Madison, Wisconsin, where I went to high school and college. Although the book is set in present day, I kept thinking it was set in the 90's because it made Madison seem way behind in LGBT teen issues/bullying. So many distracting inaccuracies. As a YA LGBT book it was also disappointing. The age difference between the main character and his boyfriend wasn't adequately addressed (would a put-together senior in college really put up with a lost senior in high school?) Why did the sister need to be pregnant? Would the LGBT center be so oblivious to what some of its residents were doing? Lots of weaknesses but the concept of people purposely contracting HIV was an interesting twist that kept me reading despite the numero... moreus flaws.
review 2: Still not quite sure what to make of this book. I quite enjoyed the first half, even if it did read very much like a work of chick lit (which is not necessarily a bad thing) but as soon as the Chaser plot became fully fledged I wanted to stop reading. Not only because, having not know what the group stood for until Evan tells the reader, I felt sick to the pit of my stomach, but because at this point in the novel everything becomes absurd and unbelievable (and it was only just about believable in the first place). I was reading this book in the hope that it would enlighten its YA audience about the problems of living with AIDS and how to avoid contracting it, instead it flits between overly preachy morals about safe sex and terrifying its reader into abstinence. Farrey's writing style is entertaining and I the references to Evan's art are interesting albeit under-developed, but overall I just think that novel doesn't treat its subject matter in the right way and ends up (unintentionally?) giving out the wrong messages: that sex is going to put you in hospital either due to an infection or some horrendous internal bleeding, that the only way to feel like you belong is to essentially join a cult (Evan shuns the Chasers and ends up living alone and given up on college: no friends, no family and in a rocky relationship with a guy who lives on the other side of the country and isn't sure he wants to be with him) and that if you contract AIDS, like Mr Benton, you're going to end up slowly dieing alone after an unhappy life. Seriously strange reading experience. less

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