Customer Reviews

All Over Him: The Continuing Journals of Will Barnett

5 star:		(5)
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The Journals of Will Barnett - "Uncle Sean", "Lance" and now "All Over Him" - make a wonderful series. In "Uncle Sean" we meet Will at age 14 when he untangles those mysterious feelings that lead to the understanding of being gay. In "Lance", Will meets the love of his life. Now, in "All Over Him", Will and Lance's love for each other is tested as they go off to college and experience being apart from each other.

As a fan of the first two books, I was happy when the third book was published. I wanted to learn what happens to Will and Lance. Writing a love story about two guys eighteen hundred miles apart is a particular challenge. Donaghe is certainly up to the task as he addresses separation, temptation and reunion of these two great characters.

Set primarily in Austin, Will lives with Uncle Sean as he attends the University of Texas. Austin's a great setting. Moving from a small town in the desert of New Mexico, we meet a variety of gay characters, good, bad and indifferent as Will is exposed to the bigger world and the temptations and complexities that it offers.

Off in San Francisco, Lance continues to develop as an artist. It would be nice to know more of what he's going through but, unfortunately, you can't be in two places at once. Donaghe does do a good job of keeping him an integral part of the story but it's primarily in letters or over the phone. I'd hate to have their long distance bills!

I especially liked meeting up with Sean again. He's as appealing now as he was in the first book. It's gratifying to see Will and Uncle Sean come to terms with their feelings for each other. Sean also confronts his own wounds and Will's amusing attempts to find him a partner.

"All Over Him" is a more mature book than the first two. It addresses the realities and complexities of maintaining a relationship. While I confess some disappointment that it moves away from the unabashed romanticism of the earlier books, Donaghe is still a romantic. Like the rest of us, Will and Lance have to grow up. Donaghe's major themes of love and family hold the book on course. And the endings for Sean, Will and Lance are rewarding. It makes you want to write Donaghe and beg for a fourth book in this superb series.

While the first two books in The Continuing Journals of Will Barnett focused on young gay love in an anti-gay setting, this longer, more complex installment uses that relationship to explore the difficulties of lasting gay relationships and the challenges of a growing gay civil rights movement. Setting the book in Austin and San Francisco during the 1970s gives author Ronald L. Donaghe many opportunities to examine those changing times, while still keeping the focus on Will and Lance.

The young lovers now find themselves split between those two cities, because of college and life-long ambitions. As with any long-distance relationship, theirs becomes tested in many ways. However, unlike their heterosexual counterparts, they lack role models for their relationship, since even Will's beloved Uncle Sean has not maintained the lasting love he sought.

This book's epilog closes the journals out for now, with Donaghe giving some clever winks and nods to his many loyal readers. We know we can expect at least one more visit with Will and Lance, and that we can expect many more unforgettable characters from the ever-creative mind of Ronald L. Donaghe.

-Duane Simolke, author of The Acorn Stories and Degranon

Donaghe gets better and better. "All Over Him" is a worthy addition to this lovely series. Here we find Will and Lance trying to stay true to each other though separated by distance. Of course this is not easy. Thrown into a different environment, each young man has to overcome temptation and desires which seems an impossible feat in the real world. But this is fiction, and should gives us hope that monogamy is possible.
Being a sentimental fool, I find myself screaming at Will to just drop everything and go to Lance. But I understand Donaghe's message. Will is only 19 and needs to sort out his feelings for his Uncle Sean, whom he loves since 14, and his husband, Lance. Uncle Sean's emotional search for one true love to spend his life with just tugs at my heart. I am glad he finally found Hank and Hanky Hank. The ending is satisfying but I hope Donaghe is not considering to end the series. All Over Him is one year in Will's life when he was 19. I am sure Will and Lance has much more to tell.

Another great contribution to the Continuing Journals of Will Barnett, "All Over Him" finds its storyteller, Will Barnett, in his freshman year of college, hundreds of miles away from the love of his life, Lance. Even as the boys stay in contact with regular phone calls, external factors threaten to tear them apart. Ron Donaghe continues to bring to bear his considerable skill as a writer and storyteller himself, working in real-life events from the era of his story (in this case, the early 1970's) to make the tale that much more vivid. Donaghe writes with a compassion and respect that leaves the reader feeling like he just spent time with old friends by the time the story concludes. A must read for all fans of Will's story, old and new. --Andrew Barriger, author of Finding Faith.

"All Over Him" is the seamless continuation of the story of Will and Lance, begun in the first installment, "Uncle Sean" and picked up again in "Lance." Once again Ron Donaghe has the reader glued to the pages following Will and Lance as they navigate the events of their lives, in a world relentlessly telling them that long-term, committed love between two men is an elusive dream. Alone and together they face what could be the biggest test yet of their love and the reader won't know the outcome until the very end.
Once again, with remarkable consistancy, Ron Donaghe speaks as Will in a completely believable, almost too believable way, often leaving the reader wondering if Will is out there too, reading his own story.
"All Over Him" answers the question about the permamancy of love shared by two men.

The final chapter (so far) in the Early Journals of Will Barnett, ALL OVER HIM, is a fitting and satisfying conclusion to the trilogy. It has the same down-to-earth quality of the previous book, giving it the texture of a real life as opposed to a fictional story, though this book feels a bit less like a transcribed journal and more like a first-person narrative. The period covered this time around is Will's freshman year at the University of Texas, Austin where he is living with his beloved Uncle Sean while temporarily separated from his boyfriend, Lance, who is going to art school in San Francisco. The year is 1974 and Ronald Donaghe lovingly recreates the era showing us the political scene of the times, including the burgeoning gay rights movement; pride parades; the free-love, anti-monogamy attitude of most gays at that time; the drug culture; and hippie lifestyle. While little happens in terms of plot (much like real life) the strength of the writing lies in the bonds of family love however it is defined, and the word that I believe best describes this book is: bittersweet. The book doesn't quite capture the raw emotional power of the first one, UNCLE SEAN, and my one quibble would be that my patience began to wear a bit thin with the constant commenting on how beautiful every man was. But of course I'm no longer a 19-year-old boy with raging hormones! There is a very nice epilog at the end that brings us up to date on what became of all the characters and gives the series a satisfying conclusion in the event that Donaghe decides not to continue the series.

three and a half stars

Mark R. Probst
The Filly