Saturday, June 10, 2017

Review: The Best Man

The Best Man The Best Man by Richard Peck
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Mild spoilers.

About half way through this book, I was going to complain that the student teacher was portrayed way too positively. Everything about him was perfect - good looking, military (therefore assumed to be patriotic), determined to be a great teacher, fun, good with kids, creative, etc., etc. It seemed to be the perfect set up for a gay character. And yep, he was gay. I am not sure why my opinion of this lessened toward the end of the book. He was still portrayed as too good, but it didn't seem to matter as much. Most of the other characters were portrayed as too good, too.

Gay characters and other important characters don't have to be superhumanly great, in order for them to be lovable or interesting or worthy.

One thing that rescued the book from being overly positive for me was the MC. He was pretty clueless for much of the book. I like the fact that as he got older, he started paying attention to people more.

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