Customer Reviews

50 Reasons to Say "Goodbye"

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Comprising fifty vignettes recounting the hapless Mark's experiences with nearly as many romantic disappointments, a story unfolds. Mark is the gay Everyman, looking for his Prince Charming and having to kiss a lot of frogs in the meantime. The writing is tinged equally with humor and bitterness, and guides the reader through all the blind alleys and primrose paths which Mark follows in pursuit of...of...well, Mark hardly even knows what it is he's seeking himself, but he knows what it isn't, and that's what he invariably ends up with. He's continually victimized -- by himself, by the objects of his affection, even by his friends, yet his plight elicits not pity but a nodding understanding. We've all been there. He's a plugger. He gets up, dusts himself off, and starts all over again. He's surrounded by a motley crew of friends and loved ones, some broadly drawn and fleshed out, others more sketchily.

Throughout the story, despite the hurdles this man encounters, runs a thread of optimism, despite the bleak and sometimes rather implausible-seeming picture drawn of much of the gay subculture -- especially the club scene. But in most instances, it's a true picture, which is food for thought.

Nick Alexander's freshman oeuvre is a satisfying read, undemanding in its straightforward simplicity of style, and can be read easily in one or two sittings. It's a wonderful lead-in to the much pithier and more complex sequel, Sottopassaggio, which differs quite a lot in both style and content, following Mark and Jenny into deeper waters. Find it, buy it, read it. Then read it again.

This little book reminds me of the best writing of Armistead Maupin and Patrick Gale. The narrator is a young 30-something who is on a constant quest for Mr. Right in all the wrong places-- well, actually in every place: England, France, Australia, the U. S, and in selected cities and bars of these countries as well as well as the internet and biker organizations. Almost to a person, these love objects are humpy beyond words at first blush; but things are never as they seem. Mr. Alexander writes with a great deal of flair and humor, is brilliant with dialogue and certainly can coin a phrase. He makes a verb out of "double take." One Roberto de Milano "seems larger than life, brick-chicken-shed of a man." He is also very good at summing up in a few sentences what many of us have felt about a PNB (Potential New Boyfriend) the moment we sense that we have taken a wrong turn and are heading in the wrong direction a la Robert Frost. About Luc, whom the narrator has met in the internet.

"'I feel happier here than I have for ages.'
A Cold front moves over my heart; I shiver. . . 'I love this,' he says. 'I love being here, your house, the garden, the cat,' he laughs. 'I think I love you too,' he says.
It's too soon and it's all too much. And it's all the wrong way round. I can feel my heart closing down. . . I don't want to be the all-in-one solution to anyone's problems."

Witty, sophisticated, addictive-- these loosely connected chapters add up to a fine novel. One other thing: you'll never feel the same way about a hard-boiled egg after reading about the narrator's encounter with the Egg Man.

I just had to write a review here. Saying that 50 Ways to say goodbye is depressing is just dumb. I spent a whole weekend tucked up with this book. It's Ironic, iconic, intelligent, and yes, very very funny.
Certain chapeters (the egg man for one) had me spitting my beer out.
Any gay man with a bit of a sex-life who doesn't enjoy reading this really does need some zoloft.
- Greg.

This is a strange and wonderful novel.
I read it in a single long weekend, and I laughed out loud and wept a bit too (prompting some very strange looks from my husband.)
When the book ended I felt empty and sad and wise and desperate for something else to replace it.
It's taken me a while to work out just what it is about this novel, because I believe that it's something magical and rare.
This book somehow manages to be more than the sum of the stories it contains and each story somehow manages to be more than the sum of the words that make it up.
Nick Alexander writes with a shocking lack of description, some of the tightest prose you will ever see, but the images and emotions created are vibrant and absorbing and at times overpowering.
This may sound over the top but I actually think that no novel like this has ever been written, and certainly no "gay" novel.
It's like reading some wonderful mixture of Virginia Woolf's stream of consciousness writing and Armistead Maupin's cheeky Tales of the City, with a dash of Queer as Folk thrown in for good measure.
Don't be put off by the 'gay' label.
Buy it. Read it. Then wait desperately for this man's next novel.

There used to be a pdf file of this book circulating before it was published. I'm glad an editor finally picked it up.
It's a great story, or set of stories, and the short stand-alone chapter format makes it easy to pick up and quite addictive.
The characterisations are strong and the reader gets involved and concerned for the main character. The climactic end is the most amazing surprise.
The writing is much better than we are used to putting up with from gay authors and my guess is that the straight world will enjoy the voyeuristic access to hidden aspects of the gay dating game.
All in all, I think this is the perfect summer books to dip in and out of when you're on the beach and although I don't often read things over, I intend to order a proper copy for myself and read it again.

I got this book after reading several glowing reviews here, and I feel somewhat cheated: I expected something in the vein of an updated, more "now" "Tales of the City," or, in the worst case, something like a gay version of "Sex in the City'". Instead, I found myself plodding on through the pages of (mercifully short) "50 reasons...".

I guess it would be boring and counterproductive to enumerate at least fifty reasons why this is a rather mediocre book, so just the select few (other than the typos) that most immediately come to mind. The book is a chronicle - more a series of loosely connected vignettes, or episodes, than a novel - of its hapless gay protagonist's quest for - hold your breath - LOVE.

This, as it turns out, surprisingly joyless endeavor, is based on Mark's mistaken, and embarrassingly naïve conviction that having lots of quick, promiscuous (and sketchily described) sex with strangers is somehow going to magically produce at some point a great LOVE RELATIONSHIP of his life. Predictably, it doesn't. Duh.

Mark's inane failure to comprehend the basic difference between love and lust - he doesn't seem to learn anything from past mistakes - gradually gets to be more and more annoying especially since he expects us, the readers, to empathize with him after each consecutive (and forseeable) failure. In the process, his various insights have the depth and feel of children's tepid wading pool, making Carrie Bradshaw's comments on love, life, and shoe-shopping, look PROFOUND by comparison, not to mention witty, a characteristic of which Nick Alexander's style is strangely, and completely, devoid.

This is a depressing little book that should come with a free, generous sample of Zoloft.

Many of us know what it's like to hit the bars or the Internet time and time again, only to be disappointed. Nick Alexander shows us 50 scenarios in which romance can take a wrong turn, and still manages to be really funny. The scene at Club Med was so hilarious that I laughed throughout the night, and my roommates thought I was quietly crying in my bedroom. He also dashes any contrived ideas you might have about living in the south of France, or for that matter, going to the Syndey gay Mardi Gras. I'm looking forward to reading the sequel.

Mark is looking for that elusive man, the one whom he can love and build the rest of his life with, but search as he may, it seems near impossible, there is always a problem. Through fifty encounters, from one side of the world to the other the story relates his efforts, some don't even reach his front door, some get a second chance, and others might just last a brief time. Is he doomed to fail?
Nick Alexander writes perceptively, frankly and lucidly and with economy, wasting no time on florid descriptions, but quickly getting to the heart of each encounter. It all makes for a fast paced, witty, entertaining, insightful and at times moving read.
The story continues in Alexander's next novel, Sottopassaggio, which I must now read.

addendum: I have since read Sottopassaggio, and the other novels in the 50 Reasons series, and they just get better and better!

Excellent book. Good to know that there is "dating" and "life" after 35! Character and story made me laugh, cringe and simply identify!

Mark is looking for that elusive man, the one whom he can love and build the rest of his life with, but search as he may, it seems near impossible, there is always a problem. Through fifty encounters, from one side of the world to the other the story relates his efforts, some don't even reach his front door, some get a second chance, and others might just last a brief time. Is he doomed to fail?
Nick Alexander writes perceptively, frankly and lucidly and with economy, wasting no time on florid descriptions, but quickly getting to the heart of each encounter. It all makes for a fast paced, witty, entertaining, insightful and at times moving read.
The story continues in Alexander's next novel, Sottopassaggio, which I must now read.