Something Like Winter by Jay Bell

[reviews_and_ramblings]

On the contrary of most other readers of the previous book, Something Like Summer, I didn’t dislike Tim, actually I thought he had his reasons, and that, in a way, Ben was pushing him. While it was sad to see them split in high school, I think it was a necessary step in their growing process. And of course this allowed Ben to meet and love Jace, that, this time like the other readers, I loved and thought was the best characters of them all.

Something Like Winter is not a sequel, it’s the same story from Tim’s point of view. This is something missing in the previous book, especially when Tim and Ben part; Tim in college, his relationship with Eric, the man who will leave him an inheritance big enough to allow him independence, are all things we learned in pieces, but that we don’t really had the time to comprehend. With this novel the author wants to give us that chance; maybe he did so to make Tim a more likable candidate to Ben’s love for many fans of the previous book, but to me it was more the chance to know better someone I liked, and that I wanted to understand better.

There aren’t really new events, more or less what happens here happened in the previous book too, but the strange thing is that it felt like a completely different book. Sure I recognized the story, even if I read Something Like Summer more than 2 years ago, but nevertheless I think, even if I read it just 1 month ago, the feeling would be the same. It’s actually an interesting concept, very original, one that I think no other author did before: take the same story, same characters, same events, and write a completely different book; I didn’t think that was possible, but Jay Bell managed it. I’m not a literature student, and I don’t know if this is some known writing exercise, but it isn’t, then I think Jay Bell needs to be listed on some essays on how to invent new writing style, and if it’s, then he has to be listed for using it at perfection. I dare a new reader to the series to buy both books and reading them one after the other and tell me if it’s not true. At the time I’m writing this, Jay Bell has already released Something Like Autumn, that is Jace’s (and Ben?) story; while maybe there are some points in common with the first two books, I think Autumn will be slightly different, in both books Jace appears only in the end, and we really don’t know much about him before Ben. Meanwhile, I’m also waiting for the coming soon movie based on Summer, I suppose another record by Jay Bell, a self-published author who saw his book listed as Top Year Bestselling in Gay Fiction on Amazon and shortlisted for a Lambda Literary Award (which he won the year after for Kamikaze Boys, btw).

Amazon: Something Like Winter
Amazon Kindle: Something Like Winter
Paperback: 374 pages
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (October 23, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1479261726
ISBN-13: 978-1479261727

Series: Seasons
1) Something Like Summer: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/1233202.html
2) Something Like Winter

Reading List: http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=reading list&view=elisa.rolle