I have to give this one five stars because not since Andrew Holleran have I ever read a book where I found a piece of myself on every page. Kevin Bentley writes with the “snap your finger” attitude of Kirk Read and the “slap your face” brutal honesty of Paul Russell. 
“Coming of Age” novels are usually over-the-top or too predictable because most gay males have lived those stories and know what to expect. We can easily distinguish fact from fiction because we’ve either lived it or lied it at some point in our life. Bentley has done both.
Bentley experiments with drugs and lovers, all the while trying to discover what kind of person he wants to become. But it is these stories, these people, who end up shaping him into that person whether it’s what he wanted or not. And all to often while reading this book, I kept saying to myself, “This is me!”
Experimenting with your friends in school, hitting the bars in college, living with lovers or roommates (or both), it is the stories between the sheets and out of them that honestly make you keep reading. Bentley points out specific times and places where he was in life, but the stories also let you know what kind of person he was at the time and how the events shaped him. I could totally relate!
Near the end, he dips into the AIDS pool and explores the effects the disease has had on him and his lovers. He counts his friends, his acquaintances…the ones that are still here and the ones that are gone and how time snuck up on them. Definitely a fresh perspective on an old bell that’s been rung too many times.
One of the most provocative and absorbing “gay” anthologies I’ve read in a long time!
