Dancing Dirty

by Ryan Field

It's the summer of 1978, it's the middle of the disco era, and dancing is one of the hottest trends. But 18 year old Junior has never seen the inside of a gay bar or danced with another man. His mother and father think he's just shy about meeting girls and that he'll grow out of it. His little sister drives him insane with her constant invisible companion, a talking dog named Elmer. All Junior cares about is meeting the right man and falling in love. But when his parents buy a summer home in an exclusive resort community in the mountains of northeastern Pennsylvania, his prospects of finding love don't look too promising. His first day there he meets an aggressive, abrasive young woman who isn't the least bit shy about letting him know she wants to get to know him better. And the more he ignores her, the more she chases after him. While his mother and father are enjoying all the amenities of the resort, and his sister is flirting with one of the waiters, Junior mopes around watching everyone else have fun. That is until he meets a handsome young dance instructor named Carlo who changes his life in ways he'd never dreamed were possible. From the minute Junior lays eyes on Carlo, he knows he's in love. And in order to prove his love, he's willing to make personal sacrifices that no one else has ever been willing to make for Carlo...

Genres: M M Romance, Gay

206 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 18, 2010

About the author

Ryan @ryanfield Hybrid author of over 100 published modern romance novels and stories, including AN OFFICER AND HIS GENTLEMAN, FANGSTERS, and THE RAINBOW DETECTIVE AGENCY. He is a Lambda Award-winner with a short story and he's always more than thankful for reader reviews. In fact, he cherishes reviews from real readers, and that means good or bad reviews.

Reviews

[CrabbyPatty · Rating 3 out of 5]

You are either going to enjoy Dancing Dirty because it's based on the movie "Dirty Dancing" or you're going to dislike Dancing Dirty ... because it's based on the movie "Dirty Dancing."

This book is basically a retelling of the 1987 movie, which was set in 1963 in the Catskills. Field has updated the story to 1978 and set the story in a resort community in Pennsylvania. Baby is Junior and Johnny Castle is Carlo and yup, "Nobody puts Junior in the corner." The dance that Junior and Carlo perform is at a Leather Party complete with Junior in a black leather vest, ass-less chaps and leather boots with 4" heels. Oooh, baby.

Dancing Dirty is very faithful to the events of the movie (with the addition of Elmer, an imaginary dog), but it also works fairly well as a M/M romance. In an echo of Baby's speech to her father, Junior tells his father:

If you love me, you'll understand that I didn't choose to be who I am and I didn't do it to hurt you. I love you, Dad, and I can apologize for what I did with Stella and the money. But I can't apologize for who I am.

While Junior and Carlo have some very sexy scenes (okay, quite a few), we don't get Carlo's POV and I didn't feel that zing of chemistry between the two. Max Kellerman's grandson Neil from the movie has been recast as Valerie and I did not like the way the author portrayed Valerie - described as a large girl, with puffy hands, big feet, frizzy hair, and obnoxious manners. Finally occasionally the author breaks the fourth wall by directly addressing the reader (mostly to explain how things were like in 1978) and I found this disconcerting.

I liked some of the elements of Dancing Dirty and give it 3.25 stars. I think this is a story where "you results may definitely vary!"

I received an ARC from the Publisher, via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.
Review also posted at Gay Book Reviews - check it out!

[Laxmama · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thank you Netgalley for an ARC copy.

I was looking forward to reading this story, I am a huge fan of the movie Dirty Dancing, I can't count the times I have watched it. I also enjoy reading a great romance or an enjoyable m/m story. This book just did not do it for me, I did not feel any real chemistry or connection with the M/C's - for me it felt a bit like a forced word for word re-telling of the movie just switching the faces. Even the key lines were the same.

[Jennifer Shanahan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received an ARC from NetGalley of this book. I thought the story line looked cute because it follows the movie Dirty Dancing which I have seen a million times. It did, almost exactly for the most part except that the main characters are gay and the little sister has an imaginary dog (which is kind of funny actually and made the story better). However, the writing was really dry and basic. I did not like the author's writing style at all. I also realized that he has written a gay book version of several different movies which I probably will not read after reading this one. The characters were pretty one-dimensional and boring. I did not really feel it between Junior and Carlo. The best part of the story was the invisible dog friend of Junior's sister who nobody could see but was apparently real. The only reason I finished the book was because it was short and I wanted to see if Carlo actually said, "Nobody put Junior in a corner," which he did. This author will probably never be a favorite of mine.

[Natasha]

I received an arc from the publisher via netgalley in exchange for an honest review

dnf @ 14%

I read the line "he sounded more like a girl than most girls sounded". Hahaha, no. Also I was troubled with how his sister is handled as she is 13 and has hallucinations.

[Seregil · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story is basically the gay version of Dirty Dancing, though that is quite obvious from the title and summary, so if you liked the movie and you like gay romance, you might want to give this book a chance.
It's true, thought, that that makes me deduct originality points from this story, but it was well written, with hot, naughty sex scenes. As for the lacking originality, there is at least one thing to disprove it - a invisible dog/pooka which could only be seen by the sister of one of the main characters - that I'm pretty sure that wasn't in the original (I would have remebered it, I'm sure...). I totally loved the sister/invisible dog combo :P
There were just two things that bothered me about the book, actually: the fact that the narator told us 100 times things like "it's 1978, so they don't have AIDS", "it's 1978, so gay men are rarely coming out", etc. We are told this in the first lines of the book, and then, the same thing is repeated every time we might question the actions of a character though our "modern standards". I felt, as a reader, like I'm being called stupid and/or unable to remember from reading it once.
The second thing that bothered me was that despite the sweet, cute, happy ending, of which I approve, it also came out of nowhere and some things were left completely unexplained (after they had angst about those issues for half the book, in the end they go like "oh, nevermind them, it will work out"). But maybe I'm too sensitive on the topic, because I have those sort of issues in real life and all the positive thoughts are not very helpful in finding solutions....

Anyway, this is the first book by Ryan Field I read and it made me feel like I should look into his other books. I really enjoyed it. It got me hooked with its funny and slightly naughty atmosphere.

3.5 stars (but leaning towards 4)

[PointyEars42 · Rating 1 out of 5]

I only managed 5 chapters before giving up. It isn't by any means an exact (gay) replica of the movie Dirty Dancing (which I have seen done - and done really well - in several fandoms within m/m fan fiction) but it stuck just closely enough to Dirty Dancing's screenplay to feel like plagiarism, rather than a retelling. All of the references to "how things were back in '78 compared to today" were really jarring and stopped any given paragraph, never mind the story as a whole, from having real flow.

I could not get past how poorly written this book was; the short, choppy sentences and the repetition of words kept distracting me from the story so I just couldn't sink into this world and see where it was going. Maybe if I'd hung in there a little longer I would have found something worth reading, but it was already all I could do to make it to the end of Chapter 5.

[Tracy~Bayou Book Junkie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm torn because I absolutely love the movie Dirty Dancing, and I thought the author adapted the book well, if you've watched the movie even once or a thousand times like I have, you'll definitely see the similarities between the movie and this book, in fact, some scenes are actually portrayed almost verbatim to the movie scenes.

While you will definitely know this is an adaptation of the movie, for me the execution didn't quite work. The story felt, well, cheesy. If you've seen the movie you'll know the characters backstories, but the author didn't develop the characters. The story is told completely from Junior's (Baby) point of view. I think the author missed out on not letting us hear from Carlo (Johnny). I was missing the chemistry between the characters. It all felt sort of superficial.

One of my biggest pet peeves about an author's writing style is that it is "telly" and not "showy". Bring me in and let me experience it for myself, let me see what's happening, don't tell me what's happening. This story is very "telly", and I didn't really connect with the characters.

The story is set in 1978, and at times the author would, well, just read down.


•••••
"He knew he’d be masturbating alone a lot that summer. He was surrounded by good looking men in short pants, bathing suits, and athletic gear. And none of them seemed to be gay. Even the word gay in reference to homosexuals was still only catching on in 1978 and most people in the mainstream were not comfortable using it unless they were whispering."

"He’d masturbated to magazine photos of men sucking dicks, but that was the only visual he’d ever seen. In 1978, there were no videos or DVDs to watch male porn. There was no Internet. If you wanted to watch any kind of porn back then, you either went to an independent porn theater or an adult bookstore where they had 25-cent peep shows."
••••

You're not supposed to hear from the character about what is happens in the future. The characters in a book, unless it's an autobiography/memoir you're reading, aren't supposed to know what the future holds. These types of statements just threw the story off even further, especially since there is a section in the front of the book from the author telling us similar things already.

I'm sure some will enjoy the story and maybe even love the characters and while I don't think it was a horrible read, it just wasn't for me.

*copy provided to me by the author/publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*

[Deanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

For Dirty Dancing Fans

If you love Dirty Dancing and MM romance, then you will this a fun story. It is a fun story with a deeper emotion of being gay in the 1970s. I would love to see the leather dance scene on the big screen. The director of Dirty Dancing so this might be a fan fiction he could have enjoyed.

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Faux 1970s. Look at the cover! Completely inaccurate. And the attempt to explain the 1970s just makes this worse and more noticeable.

[Joshua Stein · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disclosure: I worked as an editor on this book; I don't review all of the books that I edit, though, so take that for what it's worth.

There are a lot of odd criticisms of this book in the current reviews, and I think it is important to separate the fair critical stuff and the stuff that's just kind of silly.

Spoilers below this point.

Most (basically all) of the story elements are borrowed directly from the film. As some other reviewers have noted, if you having feelings about Dirty Dancing then those feelings are likely a pretty good guide to how you'll feel about the book. It is set in the '70s, as an homage to the gay culture of that era, in contrast to the '60s, but the plot is structurally the same. Those who criticize it as "near plagiarism" seem to be missing the point here; the point is supposed to be that the themes of the original story are more or less transitive (though I'll get to the parts that are less transitive below).

I won't vouch for the accuracy of the representation of gay culture in the '70s. I very much wasn't there, and most of the representations that I hear from gay men who were there tend to be a little hyper-nostalgic, and so I'm suspicious of their accuracy. Field attempts to do good research on this stuff, though there are moments where the presentation of this stuff is a little clunky, including the "back then, it was like..." sort of locution. I don't find that too intrusive, though.

With that in mind, there are a few concerns about the book. The first is that it does shift into fairly overt chauvinism at times, including the anti-femme and sexist elements. I'm not sure if these are an artful presentation of the attitudes in the '70s (which was my reading during the editorial process) or some of the sensibility of the author slipping into the work. I can definitely see how this is challenging for some readers, and do think it is a tricky line to walk given the sexism and the masculine/feminine dynamics of gay culture during that era (which persist, unfortunately, today).

The second has to do with the role of a few of the plot elements and whether they do fit in during the telling. One of the noteworthy social criticisms in the film is the presence of an illegal abortion; it was edgy in the '80s, and is really still edgy today. The thing is, the ethically questionable and illegal abortion that takes place in Dancing Dirty doesn't make nearly as much sense, because it takes place five years after Roe, while the film takes place about a decade before.

I think that these are two major concerns that challenge readers, and they're definitely fair criticisms. With that in mind, though, I think the overall quality of the book is excellent for those who want a male/male remake of the story that takes the film seriously, and doesn't do too much in the way of liberties. Field is a good writer, and well respected in gay romance for a good reason; the execution of a lot of the romantic content in the story is especially good, and I hope that folks enjoy it.

[Eric · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and Riverdale Avenue Books for the review copy.

I can only assume that I did not appreciate this much because I have not seen Dirty Dancing.
I found the writing did not flow well and the references to “how things were back in the 70’s “ a bit clunky and jarring. Even allowing for the differences between the UK and USA this did not really have a sense of the 1970’s about it.Some of the details seemed wrong- were many gay men still using Vaseline as late as this?

Carlos was potentially a very interesting character and more backstory would have helped. Junior did not ring true-would a boy from this social background have been like this? The emotional relationship worked although I was not convinced by the sex. Junior’s family and the other background characters were well sketched and had reality although a 16yo with an imaginary dog might be stretching it.

The ending was too rushed and I was left wondering how the relationship would fare when Junior went to Yale and Carlos on to his next job.

[Beebs · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is basically a retelling of the movie Dirty Dancing with 2 male MCs and moved to the 70's disco era. I absolutely loved the movie so I was hoping to love this book too but it didn't quite work for me.

While the story-line stays relatively true to the movie there are a couple of little changes. Junior's sister has an imaginary pet dog which provided some light-hearted moments but I still do not see the point of this thread as nothing else ever came of it. And, for me, the constant repetition of how things were so different in 1978 got a little bit annoying. more a HFN than a HEA but an ok afternoon's entertainment.

*Received from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

[Angelique · Rating 2 out of 5]

dirty dancing gone m/m romance,
the writing is not very good,had trouble reading it.
I love a fun story,I love m/m romance and I love dirty dancing.
a bit of youth sentiment.bud this one,did not make me laugh,smile,
or cry.it is an ok novel,nice fluffy smut nothing more


Arc was provided by netgalley in exchange for an honest review

[Fay MMBookworm · Rating 1 out of 5]

Disappointed is an understatement, when I bought this I didn't expect a EXACT copy of the movie using the same words in scenes. I got to 31 % before giving it away as it annoyed me. plagiarized a movie.. sigh Sorry Ryan you've lost me as a reader..

[A.B. Gayle · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a difficult book to review because the setup, Summer Camp, is so alien to me. Apart from the film "A Walk on the Moon" I've had zero exposure to the scene. The summer break in Australia only goes for about five weeks and the closest I've ever experienced to this would be families having regular bookings at one of the coastal caravan parks.

There would be no organised entertainment for starters.

To Junior, a gay young man going there in the late seventies, this experience must have been just as alien.

These couple of sentences late in the book helped me understand the book and put it into context:"All those frustrating years of being alone and watching his straight friends have fun didn't matter anymore. All the bitterness of missing so much disappeared."

For a gay man, nothing would have reinforced that separateness, that sense of not belonging more than summer camp.

This helped me understand the catty (not allowed to say bitchy) portrayal of the characters. All the characters. Even, at times, his sister and men both, gay and straight. But the depiction of some of the women made me wince.

Then I thought to myself. Put yourself into the shoes of a gay guy in that age. You're good looking, some women think they have the right to invade your personal space. If you're not attracted to them or any other women aren't you going to be very aware of every flaw, every character defect?

I also have to admit I have never seen the film this is based on. So, that aspect of the plot and even the sex scenes although hot didn't fascinate me as much as Ryan's portrayal of the surrounding characters and their environment.

I find it kind of ironic that it's OK to have male characters in books being described as fat, hairy, slobs but say the same about a woman (or even the opposite - too good, too beautiful etc) and you have to duck the flying handbags.

I didn't enjoy the book as much as some others of Ryans, possibly because it was depicting something that must have been excrutiatingly awful, but like all his books, it did help paint a picture of gay men and helped me see the world through their eyes.

As said at the beginning, in that time, in that setting, it must have been difficult being gay. There would have been a lot of bitterness or even resentment at missing out on being able to enjoy growing up. Taken in that context, I can understand the occasional outburst of derogatory comments a lot better.

I like to read mm "romances" written by gay males simply because it gives me the opportunity to catch a glimpse of their world through their eyes. Even if the craft or plotting is not as good I like to gain insights into who they are and why they are like they are.

Ryan may have just set out to write a gay romance based on the film "Dirty Dancing" but in doing so he has helped me understand another type of gay man. If I was casting the film, I would have seen Junior as an adolescent Carson Kressley who had to grow up and live in an era where he had to hide the fact he was gay. Think about it.

[Shanna · Rating 1 out of 5]

Unoriginal retelling of the popular movie. If you liked the movie and want to read a word for word gay adaption this is the book for you. This is a great book for people looking for an exact recreation of the movie with gay protagonists. Nothing has changed at all, except the gender of the young rich kid.

[Bookbee · Rating 2 out of 5]

*2.5 Stars*

The thing I liked most about this book - Elmer. I liked Elmer a lot!

The thing I liked least about this book - the (I want to say misogynistic but that is perhaps too strong a word so I'll just use...) bitchy portrayal and descriptions of some of the female characters. Did NOT like that at all!