What Love Means to You People and over 390,000 other books are available for Amazon Kindle – Amazon’s new wireless reading device. Learn more

33 used & new from $0.81
See All Buying Options
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
 
 
What Love Means to You People
 
 
Share your own customer images
Search inside this book
Start reading What Love Means to You People on your Kindle in under a minute.

Don’t have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here.
 
  

What Love Means to You People (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "Jim Glaser still did what needed to be done, every day..." (more)
Key Phrases: New York, Jim Glaser, Roy Jenkins (more...)
4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)

Available from these sellers.


9 new from $5.50 24 used from $0.81

Formats

Amazon Price New from Used from
  Kindle Edition, March 21, 2006 $14.37 -- --
  Hardcover, March 20, 2006 -- $5.50 $0.81

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

A Note in the Margin

A Note in the Margin

by Isabelle Rowan
5.0 out of 5 stars (8)  $15.29
Back Where He Started: A Novel

Back Where He Started: A Novel

by Jay Quinn
3.9 out of 5 stars (36)  $13.16
L.A. Heat

L.A. Heat

by P. A. Brown
4.5 out of 5 stars (17)  $13.49
A Bit of Rough

A Bit of Rough

by Laura Baumbach
4.4 out of 5 stars (26)  $12.23
To Love a Cowboy

To Love a Cowboy

by Rhianne Aile
4.2 out of 5 stars (6)  $13.49
› Explore similar items

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

With painstakingly detailed, passionate sex scenes balanced by plenty of insight into its characters' anguished inner lives, Shapiro's debut novel dramatically captures love's roulette of emotions: the electricity of possibility, the pull of youth, the weight of loss. Shapiro depicts the fraught relationship between two New York City men: 42-year-old ad exec Jim Glaser and 23-year-old pretty-boy and aspiring artist Seth McKenna. Pulled together by empathy and animal attraction, Jim and Seth must also navigate undercurrents of pain: Jim still mourns the death of his long-term partner, Zak, and Seth conceals a troubled smalltown Nebraska background that includes a fundamentalist Christian mother, an abusive stepfather and a horrifying teenage experience that has left him emotionally crippled. Afraid of Jim's pity, Seth paints a much cheerier picture of his upbringing, and when his younger sister, Cassie, suddenly shows up in New York, Seth is terrified she will reveal their history. Bitter that Seth escaped Nebraska and she didn't until now, Cassie also struggles with but quickly accepts his homosexuality. Fate temporarily calls Seth back to Nebraska, and he and Jim hit a painful low before Shapiro delivers a reassuring if improbable happy ending. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


From Booklist

Cooper Union grad student Seth "enhances" his background during a first date with Jim, 40, the assured, suave, power-suited ad exec Seth met while assisting on a photo shoot. We know where this is going, but the pleasure's in the process as experienced Jim, still grieving the loss of longtime lover Zak two years ago, forestalls the inevitable and spends months--months!--of quiet dinners and long, meandering walks before falling passionately into bed with the youth for four days of hot sex. The two seem soul-destined, but nightmares of Seth's abused, impoverished past follow them into Jim's well-appointed bed. For it's culture shock for the youth from Nebraska, whose slummy apartment consists of tiny bedroom, bathtub-in-kitchen, and a futon for the hooker roommate. Complications mount when Seth's sister, Cassie, arrives unexpectedly. This smoothly written gay melodrama on both the poignancy of first love and love the second time around cries for movie adaptation. Whitney Scott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 384 pages
  • Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books; 1 edition (March 21, 2006)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0312347898
  • ISBN-13: 978-0312347895
  • Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.6 x 1.4 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
  • Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #297,915 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    •  Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

More About the Author

NancyKay Shapiro
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

› Visit Amazon's NancyKay Shapiro Page
Front Cover | Front Flap | First Pages | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Search Inside This Book:
Inside This Book (learn more)
First Sentence:
Jim Glaser still did what needed to be done, every day. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
New York, Jim Glaser, Roy Jenkins, Bond Street, Flanagan County, Cal Dunkett, Cooper Union, Henry James, Vin Dunkett, Jesus Christ, West Village, Bleecker Street, Family Hells, Lucas Hecklin, Stanton Street, Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Edith Wharton
New!
Concordance | Text Stats
Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Front Flap | First Pages | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Search Inside This Book:
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 2 books:

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

What Love Means to You People
97% buy the item featured on this page:
What Love Means to You People 4.4 out of 5 stars (23)
Wicked Gentlemen
3% buy
Wicked Gentlemen 4.3 out of 5 stars (54)
$12.95
Explore similar items

Tags Customers Associate with This Product

 (What's this?)
Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
 
(4)
(3)
(3)
(2)
(2)
Agree with these tags?

Your tags: Add your first tag
 
See most popular tags
 

Customer Reviews

23 Reviews
5 star:
 (16)
4 star:
 (3)
3 star:
 (2)
2 star:
 (2)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.4 out of 5 stars (23 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars WOW...what a powerful story !!, May 16, 2006
By Paul A. Minafri (Phoenix, Arizona) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)      
I was quite reticent about reading this book since it was a story about gay men written by a woman. SHAME ON ME! This book is extremely well written and captures all of aspects and subtleties of being a contemporary gay man. The story is powerful and unusual. Indeed, the plot line literally drags you into the intrigue and passion of the story. At times the story is emotionally wrenching; at other times romantically passionate. The "quirks" of the story are marvelously conceived. The end of the story is equally satisfying, however, I would have liked to have seen Seth seek some professional counseling. His total "reversal", while almost understandable, struck this reader as a sad and limiting result for himself and Jim. Despite this singular reservation, I UNHESITATINGLY RECOMMEND THIS BOOK. It is a real "sleeper".
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A truly astonishing first novel, April 4, 2006
By K. Chancey (Florida, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
A moving, heartbreakingly real story of connection and estrangement, and the shadowy territory that lies between. Lyrically told, with characters who practically leap off the page and into your consciousness. So many stories try to capture the raw truth of grief and desire and fall into cheap sentiment or cheaper sex, but What Love Means to You People succeeds in a way that will leave you breathless.
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Love Story for Grown Ups, June 22, 2006
By Blake Fraina (Connecticut) - See all my reviews
  
I thoroughly enjoyed this wholly adult love story about two very different, very damaged men set against the backdrop of contemporary New York City. Compared to so many modern love stories (gay or straight), this novel strikes me as very realistic and grown up. Too often writers become so enamoured of their characters that they tend to shy away from showing them as whole people with human imperfections and/or they seem to graft slapdash, quickie happy endings onto otherwise complicated, difficult tales. Shapiro, however, exhibits uncommon bravery to allow her protagonists, forty something ad exec Jim Glaser and his twenty-three year old artist lover Seth McKenna, to be deeply, believably flawed. Don't get me wrong - both men are still extremely likeable, perhaps more so because they come across as so real. And the ending is realistically, but hopefully, ambiguous.

Jim is still mourning the unexpected and senseless loss of his longtime lover when he meets Seth at a photo shoot. Tentatively the men begin a platonic relationship. As their feelings for one another heat up, the older man nervously delays taking the sexual plunge such that the tension between them is excruciating (for both the characters and the readers) by the time they finally do fall into bed. This proves a refreshing change of pace from so much gay fiction where the order of events tends to be - sex first, relationship later. But when Jim and Seth do consummate, the sex scenes are intensely passionate and more than a little pornographic. Hot stuff indeed. But what starts off wondrously soon sours when the secret past that Seth so meticulously hid from Jim comes back to haunt him. What Seth viewed as self-reinvention, Jim interprets as deceit. The crisis is brought to a head during a trip back to Seth's hometown in Drinkwater, Nebraska.

It is in Drinkwater that I find this otherwise perfect book's only true shortcoming. I felt Shapiro, a born and bred city gal, painted most of the rural characters as broad stereotypes of ignorance and evil. It would have leant the book more gravity, and certainly been more believable, if the reader had been given more of a balanced view, perhaps even a glimpse into the motivations behind their behaviours.

But this is a quibble. WHAT LOVE MEANS TO YOU PEOPLE is an amazing achievement. I recommend this to readers of LGBT fiction (and fans of the Big Apple) who seek an emotionally engaging, slightly spicy, uncommonly realistic love story.
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)


Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 		 Most Recent Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Violence and the ending mar otherwise addicting and powerful story
Not only are Seth and Jim a May-December romance, they seem an unlikely couple from almost any angle. Read more
Published 11 months ago by camille

5.0 out of 5 stars Broken lives, broken hearts, broken people...become a phoenix rising
Nancy Shapiro took horrifc events that formed the basis of our main characters: Seth (physically, emotionally, sexually abused his whole life)
Jim (a man who found his... Read more
Published on November 17, 2007 by Jane

2.0 out of 5 stars How love can bore you to death
Yikes. I gave this two stars because I felt badly that I could not make it past page 108 before I just couldn't take it anymore. Read more
Published on July 31, 2007 by DonMac

5.0 out of 5 stars A great love vs a "great lie"
This is a bittersweet and genuinely moving novel which juxtaposes the exalted power of a great love against the awful power of a great lie. Read more
Published on June 24, 2007 by BhamGhostwriter

5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely Superb
I think it is rare to find a book in this genre as good as this one .The writing,character development,plot/story,etc.are superb. Read more
Published on March 13, 2007 by D. Jackson

3.0 out of 5 stars Love In A Hostile World.
"Who Are These People," the song, expresses it well. They come from all walks of life, usually the creative adults who weren't allowed to be creative as children. Read more
Published on August 30, 2006 by Betty Burks

5.0 out of 5 stars Couldn't put it down!
This is one of those books that's so well written, with such a compelling story and characters you really care about that you just want to race through it and see what happens -... Read more
Published on July 25, 2006 by J. Wachob

5.0 out of 5 stars Bravo, Shapiro!
This story grabbed me from page one and holds onto me still even after I've finished the book. Jim Glaser at 42, a well to do ad executive has already loved and lost once in his... Read more
Published on July 20, 2006 by Elton T. Elliott

5.0 out of 5 stars "Most people don't spend their lives with the man they met when they were seven"
Jim and Seth are undeniably star-crossed lovers, their connection indeed an attraction of opposites. Read more
Published on May 19, 2006 by M. J Leonard

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best books I've read!
Loved,loved,loved the book. Beautifully written and the story grabs you from the beginning. To read about two people from different worlds who fall in love and battle their inner... Read more
Published on May 11, 2006 by Rodger F. Hargear

Only search this product's reviews


Customer Discussions

This product's forum
Discussion Replies Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 


Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
Search all Amazon discussions
   

Product Information from the Amapedia Community

Beta (What's this?)

Look for Similar Items by Category

Look for Similar Items by Subject

Search Books by subject:









i.e., each book must be in subject 1 AND subject 2 AND ...
 

Feedback

If you need help or have a question for Customer Service, contact us.
 Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
Is there any other feedback you would like to provide?

Your comments can help make our site better for everyone.



Your Recent History

 (What's this?)

After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in.