Customer Reviews

Sugarless

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Rick Lahrem is a rather nondescript mid-1970's high school sophomore, in a nondescript Chicago suburb, who spends most of his spare time listening to Broadway-cast albums. His ability to "blend in" is a coping mechanism, to avoid attention at school (which he fears might result in him being outed as gay) and to avoid making waves in his rather dysfunctional family, consisting of a psychologist stepfather who is a slob, his stoner stepsister, and a mother in denial about her not-so-"happy" home. It all changes for Rick the day that he gives a dramatic reading in Speech class, which results in bringing some students to tears, and puts him on the teachers' "radar" to join the school team that competes in dramatic interpretation competitions. And it starts to really unravel when he is assigned a dramatic scene from the gay-themed play "The Boys in the Band."

Surprisingly, Rich steps up to the challenges that face him, and does very well in the competitions. He also explores his sexual fantasies, with a speech coach from a rival school, dangerously about the same time as his mother is "born again" as a devout Bible-thumping Christian.

A talented first-time novelist presents a sweet, witty and well-written coming-of-age story, featuring realistic, fully-nuanced characters and situations (including the relationship with the older man). Worthy of a full five disco stars out of five!

SUGARLESS is a brilliant new work that deserves a wide audience. Well-written and constructed, Magruder's book introduces a wonderful new character, Rick, who shares his thoughts and adventures with the reader. Avoiding many of the pitfalls of similar works, SUGARLESS is far from maudlin or heavy-handed. The characters are believable and the author perfectuly captures the look and feel of the 1970s, as well as a young man's thrilling and frightening exploration of his sexuality. Kudos for such a terrific story.

Sexy, hilarious, heartbreaking. Sugarless is a valentine to love's indelible nature. Read this novel not just for its finely tuned record of the 24 hour news cycle that is adolescense . Read this novel not just for the claustrophobic familiarity of the fractured and bandaged, barely reconstituted family life circa 1973. Read this novel not just for the razor sharp humor fueled by the hormonal juggernaut of coming of age, coming out and did I mention that Jesus might save us all? But, sex definitely will. Read this novel to laugh and weep and revisit the intensity of being 15. As Rick discovers the wily, wilder world celebrated in his Sondheim musicals, he finds himself without a spoonful of sugar to sweeten life's visceral lessons of loving , losing and forgiving. The best writing is always brave and true, not just to itself but to larger realities that lodge in the heart of the reader permanently. Sugarless is such a book.

I'm glad to see that no previous reviewers have applied the labels "gay novel" or "gay fiction" to James Magruder's Sugarless. Such labels would tend to mask the broad appeal and universal coming-of-age themes of this richly drawn and enjoyable book. Clearly, the narrator and protagonist Richard Larhem's emerging sexuality is important to both character and plot. However, author Magruder has rendered Richard's difficult journey so deftly, with such honesty, humor, and care, that it is Richard's awkward teenage humanity--courage, weakness, angst, need, and manipulations--that takes center stage. As I suspect most readers will, I found much in Sugarless that resonated with my own tangled recollections of early high school years and less than ideal family dynamics. Beyond all that, Magruder has written a book that's hard to put down and a treat to read!

James Magruder's Sugarless is my favorite book of 2009. In the book, Rick--the narrator--looks back on a formative period in his life with astonishing insight and nostalgia, feeling again, through the telling of them, all of the thrills and anguish of becoming an adult. It offers the reader the vicarious pleasure of watching Rick negotiate his initiation into the sexual world, and then complicates that pleasure with honest depictions of the failure, loss, and grief which constitute mature self-awareness and social existence.

Along the way, we experience surprisingly clear yet complex descriptions of Rick's self-discovery: puzzling out the tangles of sexual desire, family, and social relationships, and of the ways that people talk around and about both the important and trivial things of life. As confusion resolves into certainty, Rick, his world, and the important people in it hurtle with all of the intensity of adolescence to a crisis as unexpected as it seems inevitable. Rick's conflicts and strength and emotional landscape shine through the prose with amazing clarity. The last chapter, in which an older Rick looks back on his life, expresses the losses of youth with a beautifully understated profundity.

I definitely recommend that you take a look at the website for the novel--it has a great trailer (when did books start having trailers, anyway?) and lots of interesting tidbits about the author and his work: [...]

I must say this was one of the more compelling reads ever for me; I sincerely had a hard time putting it down. The flow and strength of the narrator, Rick's, voice kept me reading well into the wee morning hours. Plus, the ending of the book gave a sense of satisfaction--that essentially the story played out either as needed or expected by the reader. That said, it was somewhat a dissatisfied read. I still am giving it a 4 star rating for the quality of the writing.

Generally, I don't mind flip observation or one-dimensional characterizations, provided they lead to some depth, at some point, by the narrator. That just wasn't the case with this book. Rick, for all he goes through, seems to gain very little from it all. He does gain an acceptance of himself as a gay teen, but that's pretty much it. I suppose that's all it needed to be, as a YA coming out novel, but the book really tackles so much more: family dynamics, social acceptance, sexual manipulation (to name a few) and yet those never amount to any insight for the narrator (or anyone else, for that matter).

And perhaps I was simply not the right audience for this, though I've read several YA coming out novels and never felt that way before. There were just so many socially profound things going on in this novel (consensual pedophilia (or perhaps not), abuse, family support (or lack thereof), religious conformity, finding a place of social acceptance as a teen) and none of them are given much real exploration. Though, if the author had tried to explore them all, it would have been too much--but it would have been nice if /something/ had had more depth than flip observation alone.

As mentioned above, I can't discount the quality of the writing--or else I wouldn't have soared through the book as quickly as I did--but it's just not a novel I'll ever pick up to read again.

Sugarless is a great book. Magruder has great insight into the lives of teens and the trials and tribulations of growing up and discovering yourself--especially when you are somewhat different from those around you.

Sugarless was a wonderfully raucous, bittersweet portrayal of the emotions of male teenhood. It was not just of about the feelings that we have all experienced as teens, but also of coming out mixed with being part of a dysfunctional family. His love for his mother is evident and adds another element to the story. The author totally draws you in to the characters of Sugarless...they come alive on each page! I would recomment Sugarless to anyone...I am on my second read and am enjoying it just as much as the first time.

Magruder's first publication is a delightful read, reminiscent of the late John Updike. In that regard it is a literary maze of simplicity and complexity. Every sentence is a puzzle of wit. The story centers around a dysfunctional family outside of Chicago, sprinkled with the challenges of a gay son. This is a sure winner and hopefully the first of many for Magruder

Jerry Miller

Marguder has knocked it out of the park with this one. A must-read for anyone who has competed in speech competition or for anyone with a mother.