William Neale Award for Best Gay Contemporary Romance: Ethan, Who Loved Carter by Ryan Loveless

[reviews_and_ramblings]

I have to say I’m a little envious of Ryan Loveless because if I have ever to write a novel (and no, I’m not saying I will), it would have been similar to this one. My plot bunny is about a love story involving a character with a brain injury, which basically altered his perception of reality.

But Ryan Loveless goes beyond that and this is a really sensitive matter to deal with, because both character are living with a disability, the other main character has the Tourette’s Syndrome, that, if you want to simplify it (how can you? Really you should read the book to better understand) causes Carter to have an endless succession of tics.

Living in a big city, with few friends and a lot of insensitive people, forced Carter to run away; he moves to a little California coastal town, Santa Josephina, and he immediately makes friends with his neighborhoods, a former hippy couple with two sons, teenager Elliot and Ethan, 27 years old but with a brain injury that basically turned him back to a preadolescent child. It’s important to highlight the origins of Ethan’s family to understand their attitude with their son: Ethan’s parents are not having him living in a crystal ball, Ethan has the working brain of a child but he has the body of a man, and the desires of a man, and so basically, they taught him to be careful, but they are not forbidding him to have a sexual life. Ethan has no barriers, and he doesn’t understand the concept of modesty. In a very nice paragraph, the author explains how probably Ethan sees his penis, and his sexuality, as the only thing that didn’t escape him, it’s basic, it’s simple, it’s instinct and it’s something that the new Ethan can have and understand, on some level. All the other things are complicated, but love and sex is not, to his eyes.

So Carter, while at the very first has some remorse to have a sexual relationship with Ethan, once he has the go on from Ethan’s parents, has to deal only with his own reticence towards relationships in general. Carter’s disability made him shy and scared of people, it’s not easy for him to trust, and in a way, he loves Ethan since he knows that Ethan is not able to be fake. There is no chance that Ethan will ever lie to him, as there is no chance that he will hide something. True, like Carter’s friend John, someone could question is Carter is having a relationship with Ethan since he doesn’t believe possible to have the same with someone who has not a disability, but I don’t think that is the case. There is no pity between them, maybe more a common background that makes them more sensitive to each other tunes.

http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=3222

Amazon: Ethan, Who Loved Carter
Amazon Kindle: Ethan, Who Loved Carter
Paperback: 210 pages
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press (September 17, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1613727348
ISBN-13: 978-1613727348



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Comments

[vorvolaka.livejournal.com]

I loved this novel.

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

it's really good and involving without being dramatic