What do you think?
Rate this book
Six Neckties
Now that gays are getting hitched, it seems that everyone is saying I Do. Except for Tommy Perez. He's always the best man or groomsman for his friends' nuptials. And with each occasion, Tommy goes home alone with another necktie. He's already on number four. But things seem to improve for the Maine magazine writer when he suddenly meets Danny, a confident freelance photographer who shoots a friend's wedding in Provincetown. Danny is cute enough that he should be in front of the camera rather than behind it. And complicating matters is the arrival of a sexy and slightly older guest house manager named Ignacio who begins to court Tommy's heart in their small town of Ogunquit.
But is Tommy ready for love again? As he helps his best friends Rico and Carlos prepare for their weddings, Tommy must reexamine his past relationship with his ex Mikey who had issues with the bottle in Boston. And with two potential love interests on the horizon, will it finally be Tommy's turn to walk down the aisle in his own necktie?
From the author of Boston Boys Club, Beantown Cubans, Take the Lead and Looking for Providence comes another fun, heartwarming story about the power of love and friendship.
But is Tommy ready for love again? As he helps his best friends Rico and Carlos prepare for their weddings, Tommy must reexamine his past relationship with his ex Mikey who had issues with the bottle in Boston. And with two potential love interests on the horizon, will it finally be Tommy's turn to walk down the aisle in his own necktie?
From the author of Boston Boys Club, Beantown Cubans, Take the Lead and Looking for Providence comes another fun, heartwarming story about the power of love and friendship.
- GenresContemporary
194 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 3, 2017
5 people are currently reading
41 people want to read
About the author
Johnny Diaz
7 books34 followersJohnny Diaz is a Cuban-American author of contemporary gay fiction. He is also a breaking news reporter at The New York Times. Prior to that, he was a features reporter at the South Florida Sun Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale, a reporter at The Boston Globe and The Miami Herald, his hometown newspaper. He loves to hike in Boston's Blue Hills or run in South Florida when he's not reading or writing.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
November 29, 2018
Yo BEST MAN, I really enjoyed following you around for a little while! :)
Refreshingly easy-going and entertaining story. Tommy Perez made me laugh a lot, but I was also feeling his loneliness and sadness here and there.
4.5 stars
Refreshingly easy-going and entertaining story. Tommy Perez made me laugh a lot, but I was also feeling his loneliness and sadness here and there.
4.5 stars
May 31, 2018
3.75 stars rounded up
This is only my second Johnny Diaz book; the first being Take the Lead which I read seven years ago. In my review for that one, I wrote that it felt like a gay chic-lit book. With that in mind, I decided to buy this one (this book is nominated for Lambda Literary Award for Gay Romance , by the way), hoping that it generated same feeling.
And it did....
Six Neckties opens with Tommy Perez, now forty years old, being best man for the fourth time, to his wing-man, Rico, who marries Oliver. Then the story continues with Tommy's day-to-day life, writing stories for People, meeting potential love matches, until finally Tommy gets his own happy ending.
Well, I really liked it! It didn't have too much drama -- although at one point I worried that Tommy would play around between two men who came to his life at present time -- and Tommy was likable guy.
I found out that Tommy and his friends were previously written in Boston Boys Club (I assume that this is the book where Tommy dated Mikey, a name that was dropped in this book several times as Tommy's ex). However, I have no problem with this book even if I haven't read that one.
Bottom line, it was comfortable, enjoyable, read. Plus it had one of the most ADORABLE dogs ever *lol*. Even if the ending was way too rushed for me. Like it was just being written as recap as an excuse to write "The End"
This is only my second Johnny Diaz book; the first being Take the Lead which I read seven years ago. In my review for that one, I wrote that it felt like a gay chic-lit book. With that in mind, I decided to buy this one (this book is nominated for Lambda Literary Award for Gay Romance , by the way), hoping that it generated same feeling.
And it did....
Six Neckties opens with Tommy Perez, now forty years old, being best man for the fourth time, to his wing-man, Rico, who marries Oliver. Then the story continues with Tommy's day-to-day life, writing stories for People, meeting potential love matches, until finally Tommy gets his own happy ending.
Well, I really liked it! It didn't have too much drama -- although at one point I worried that Tommy would play around between two men who came to his life at present time -- and Tommy was likable guy.
I found out that Tommy and his friends were previously written in Boston Boys Club (I assume that this is the book where Tommy dated Mikey, a name that was dropped in this book several times as Tommy's ex). However, I have no problem with this book even if I haven't read that one.
Bottom line, it was comfortable, enjoyable, read. Plus it had one of the most ADORABLE dogs ever *lol*. Even if the ending was way too rushed for me. Like it was just being written as recap as an excuse to write "The End"
Read
August 25, 2018This was not... a great book... I took it from the lambda literary awards list of nominees for best gay romance, + I was surprised by the quality of the writing. I don't like to write negative reviews + this was a perfectly sweet story abt an aging Cuban man in Maine whose best friends both get married + then he meets a man + also gets married. Okay fine. Every other book I'm reading is Sad + it was nice to not read a sad book. There were times when it was honestly sweet. I'm happy that this fictional man found love. But it was also? There was very little tension of any kind.
The dust jacket bills it as a love triangle sort of situation, which I guess Sort Of it was, but the 3rd point is never really a serious contender + it's not super clear whether he's even interested romantically in the protagonist or whether the protagonist just is thinking abt his options as he settles into his first serious relationship in a while.
There are also a huge percentage of this book which reads as a travel guide to New England. They go on a date to Providence + we're told in excruciating detail what streets they walk down, what cafes they stop at, which neighborhoods are quiet + which are full of students. It was to some extent nice to read this book while in New England myself, but there was a lot of unnecessary information.
The way he constantly compares every character to famous actors is a) not helpful bc I don't know who Ethan Hawke is or what he looks like, + b) unbelievable bc normal people... don't look like famous actors... for the most part.
I think I wouldn't have had a problem w the relative lack of action in this book if I'd felt that the writing was better. I have included some samples below of passages I felt to be indicative of the awkwardness of the book.
[The number of times we are told that this guy has dark brown curly hair is... a lot...] This is in the third chapter of the book, but all of these facts abt our protagonist's appearance are showing up for the second or third time, and they never stop.
This is the love interest describing his home country, Costa Rica:
I'm obviously not making fun of the way the author's portraying an ESL speaker, but I think "yeah my home country which I love for its healthcare + low cost of living" is Pretty Funny.
I love this actually + have included it as an example of the times when this colloquial + lightly-edited voice is really fun and funny to read.
"I know he brought a bottle of wine to this date, and I know it's white wine, but which Hand is he carrying it in??" These paragraphs read like the set up to a riddle in which I will need to know that his left hand was free so he could have caught the frisbee which came sailing from the other room + I don't know how this riddle would go, but? You know what I mean? It's so much information + it's obviously never relevant; we don't learn later that his left hand was injured as a child which gives insight into his tortured soul or anything. [He doesn't have a tortured soul, which I Super appreciated. I'm really not trying to shit on this book. There were plenty of nice things about it.]
So there we are. The punctuation is Staggeringly inconsistent, there's one million tiny tangents every other paragraph, and those tangents are all the more annoying because they're not really distracting from anything. We spend so much time talking to this random Uber driver who will never show up again + contributes nothing to the plot because there is not really any plot to distract from. He's on his way to a wedding + then he gets there + it goes well + he goes home again. It's all very. Passionless. I don't know how old the author is and I know he's written a bunch of other books about the same characters I haven't read, which maybe is part of why I didn't feel an emotional attachment to these characters, but. I'm sure there are people out there [+ I know there are bc I've read the other reviews] who wouldn't notice the writing and would focus on the facts of the story as they're laid out + would have a really nice time with it because again! It's a sweet story. But I really didn't enjoy it. I would give it like? 2.5? Stars? Sorry.
The dust jacket bills it as a love triangle sort of situation, which I guess Sort Of it was, but the 3rd point is never really a serious contender + it's not super clear whether he's even interested romantically in the protagonist or whether the protagonist just is thinking abt his options as he settles into his first serious relationship in a while.
There are also a huge percentage of this book which reads as a travel guide to New England. They go on a date to Providence + we're told in excruciating detail what streets they walk down, what cafes they stop at, which neighborhoods are quiet + which are full of students. It was to some extent nice to read this book while in New England myself, but there was a lot of unnecessary information.
The way he constantly compares every character to famous actors is a) not helpful bc I don't know who Ethan Hawke is or what he looks like, + b) unbelievable bc normal people... don't look like famous actors... for the most part.
I think I wouldn't have had a problem w the relative lack of action in this book if I'd felt that the writing was better. I have included some samples below of passages I felt to be indicative of the awkwardness of the book.
I like that he called me handsome. My cheeks instantly flush at the word young. I just turned 40 but people have told me that I can pass for early 30s because of my slight build and dark brown curly hair (which I sometimes dye to hide the gray invasion. Don't tell!)
[The number of times we are told that this guy has dark brown curly hair is... a lot...] This is in the third chapter of the book, but all of these facts abt our protagonist's appearance are showing up for the second or third time, and they never stop.
This is the love interest describing his home country, Costa Rica:
We like to say that being there is pura vida because life there is as pure as you can get or there is plenty of life. There is much wildlife there and because of the universal health care system and low-cost of living, you can have a nice good life there. I would love to go back and retire there some day."
I'm obviously not making fun of the way the author's portraying an ESL speaker, but I think "yeah my home country which I love for its healthcare + low cost of living" is Pretty Funny.
If you searched for the words sentimental, nostalgic, and gay on Google, my photo would probably pop up.
I love this actually + have included it as an example of the times when this colloquial + lightly-edited voice is really fun and funny to read.
It's 8 p.m. and I'm walking into the inn carrying a bottle of white wine in my right hand. I'm clean shaven, groomed; my hair is gelled to the side. I'm wearing a blue cotton short-sleeve shirt, blue jeans and brown boat shoes.
"I know he brought a bottle of wine to this date, and I know it's white wine, but which Hand is he carrying it in??" These paragraphs read like the set up to a riddle in which I will need to know that his left hand was free so he could have caught the frisbee which came sailing from the other room + I don't know how this riddle would go, but? You know what I mean? It's so much information + it's obviously never relevant; we don't learn later that his left hand was injured as a child which gives insight into his tortured soul or anything. [He doesn't have a tortured soul, which I Super appreciated. I'm really not trying to shit on this book. There were plenty of nice things about it.]
These thoughts swim (because they are drenched in sweat too) through my head as I wait for my Uber ride.
According to the app, my designated chauffeur is named Cheryl. Within five minutes, a black Toyota Camry hybrid pulls up and a friendly middle-aged woman with straight blonde hair lowers the passenger side window.
"Hi there! Are you Tommy?" she says, chewing gum.
"That's me!" I wave.
"Well, hop on in!" she gestures with a slight drawl.
The whir of chain saws (or are those scooters?) thunders over Duval Street, the main drag in the heart of Key West although I wouldn't be surprised to learn that there was a drag queen named Duval somewhere around here too.
So there we are. The punctuation is Staggeringly inconsistent, there's one million tiny tangents every other paragraph, and those tangents are all the more annoying because they're not really distracting from anything. We spend so much time talking to this random Uber driver who will never show up again + contributes nothing to the plot because there is not really any plot to distract from. He's on his way to a wedding + then he gets there + it goes well + he goes home again. It's all very. Passionless. I don't know how old the author is and I know he's written a bunch of other books about the same characters I haven't read, which maybe is part of why I didn't feel an emotional attachment to these characters, but. I'm sure there are people out there [+ I know there are bc I've read the other reviews] who wouldn't notice the writing and would focus on the facts of the story as they're laid out + would have a really nice time with it because again! It's a sweet story. But I really didn't enjoy it. I would give it like? 2.5? Stars? Sorry.
June 19, 2018
always nice to visit with the boys from Boston/Miami/Providence and see what life has in store for them.
July 7, 2018
Refreshing to read a gay-themed novel in which the author understands gay guys. Diaz's writing is superb as it flows smoothly and briskly, and he pens a novel which leaves the reader feeling good and energized. Unlike many of the current authors in this genre, Diaz doesn't focus on bedroom acrobatics. Sure, his characters are not nuns, but character development and interactions among the characters are his focus. In sum, it's a treat to read a Johnny Diaz novel: here's wishing him a bright future, a future in which he shares his passion for 3D characters who may face day-to-day challenges and rely upon a circle of supportive friends.
June 2, 2018
A feel-good LGBTQ story (for once!). Well written story that proves not all LGBTQ stories end in horrible tragedy. Yes some of us do have normal, happy lives full of love! Thanks to the author for being original and changing the narrative to a positive one.
June 1, 2017
What can I say, but AMAZING. Johnny captures you from the first word and truly makes you feel like you are part of the story line. I have followed these characters from the beginning and it is so refreshing to see them maturing and settling down.
The book does have its mix of happiness and sadness. Reading how Tommy misses his mom just makes it all that more profound when I miss my mom. I did smile and laugh when Tommy & Ignacio were in PVD and Johnny talked about the river. The watershed that works to maintain this river is where I work. The book also left me longing for friends like Rico & Carlos.
Cannot wait for the next one!!
The book does have its mix of happiness and sadness. Reading how Tommy misses his mom just makes it all that more profound when I miss my mom. I did smile and laugh when Tommy & Ignacio were in PVD and Johnny talked about the river. The watershed that works to maintain this river is where I work. The book also left me longing for friends like Rico & Carlos.
Cannot wait for the next one!!
Want to read
March 8, 201830th Annual Lambda Literary Award Finalist - Gay Romance
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews