What do you think?
Rate this book
Romentics #4
Nothing Personal
The gay marriage ban is nothing personal, unless you're a Cuban-American gay man in the heart of red-state America.
Carlo Batista takes on longtime conservative Tall Tony Scipione in a race for state representative. And he takes on mystery man Brian Gallagher in the race for his heart. Breaking all the rules of polite society, Carlo proves that love, sex, politics, and religion do mix -- with hot and heart-warming results.
Carlo Batista takes on longtime conservative Tall Tony Scipione in a race for state representative. And he takes on mystery man Brian Gallagher in the race for his heart. Breaking all the rules of polite society, Carlo proves that love, sex, politics, and religion do mix -- with hot and heart-warming results.
226 pages, Kindle Edition
First published December 7, 2005
49 people want to read
About the author
Scott D. Pomfret
14 books48 followersScott Pomfret is author of Since My Last Confession: A Gay Catholic Memoir; Hot Sauce: A Novel; the Q Guide to Wine and Cocktails, and dozens of short stories published in, among other venues, Ecotone, The Short Story (UK), Post Road, New Orleans Review, Fiction International, and Fourteen Hills. Scott writes from the cramped confines of his tiny Provincetown beach shack, which he shares with his partner of twenty-one years. He is currently at work on a comic queer Know-Nothing alternative history novel set in antebellum New Orleans. www.scottpomfret.com.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
Read
February 25, 2010Nothing Personal by real life couple Scott&Scott is more a mainstream novel than a romance. Actually the romance in it is a bit overshadowed by the life journey of one of the character, the Cuban-American Carlo Batista.
At the beginning of the novel, Carlo is a mid-twenty normal gay guy; like a lot average guys, he went to college and gain a white collar job in an insurance call center. He has friends and ex lovers, and he follows the floods; one of this flood brings him in front of the building where politicians are voting a ban against gay marriage... and they win. Carlo, maybe for the first time, realizes that politics can influence his life and not in the best way. An attempt to change things without being too much involved doesn't bring much and so Carlo decides to enter the ring: he opposes to the Democrats candidate to be the Democrat representative.
Carlo is not a political animal, he is mostly a man throws in something bigger than him; gathered around him is a disparate election committee, made up of friends, and not, with different minds but whose personal interests draw them together. Carlo begins to convince people that he is serious, when he himself is not sure of it. Meanwhile his relationship with Brian Gallagher, his new boyfriend, is getting serious too, even if Carlo doesn't know a lot about Gallagher, and Gallagher at once is supportive of his political campaign and soon after refuses to be too much involved.
Carlo and Gallagher's relationship is strange, since it starts abruptly, so abruptly that the reader realizes that they have a sexual relationship from little hints and not since he had the chance to read something about it; there is a scene in which Carlo is thinking to call Gallagher to ask the guy out, and few pages after, Carlo and Gallagher are steadily dating, and probably something is happening between them... I was a bit disoriented, I even went back some pages to actually check if I missed to read something... Maybe the fact is that the focus of the novel is not the romance between Carlo and Gallagher, but more Carlo's growth as independent man. And to be independent, Carlo couldn't focus on Gallagher.
While we know about everything about Carlo, we know very little about Gallagher. He remains a mystery almost till the end, not only about his life, but also about his feelings for Carlo. Gallagher is strange, since he made things that are very tender, like bringing Carlo to know his family, but then he never gives any details on his life and feeling. Despite this, speaking of the romance, I prefer Gallagher's character, I feel like he is more involved on a personal level than Carlo. I really feel Carlo like a man following the flood, both in politics than love, but maybe this is due to the fact that he is still so young.
Anyway the book is a bit of a surprise, quite different from the others I read by the same authors, but not a negative one; only be warned, to be not disappointed from the lack of heavy romance aspects, usually so frequent in the Romentics novels.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1419620797/?...
At the beginning of the novel, Carlo is a mid-twenty normal gay guy; like a lot average guys, he went to college and gain a white collar job in an insurance call center. He has friends and ex lovers, and he follows the floods; one of this flood brings him in front of the building where politicians are voting a ban against gay marriage... and they win. Carlo, maybe for the first time, realizes that politics can influence his life and not in the best way. An attempt to change things without being too much involved doesn't bring much and so Carlo decides to enter the ring: he opposes to the Democrats candidate to be the Democrat representative.
Carlo is not a political animal, he is mostly a man throws in something bigger than him; gathered around him is a disparate election committee, made up of friends, and not, with different minds but whose personal interests draw them together. Carlo begins to convince people that he is serious, when he himself is not sure of it. Meanwhile his relationship with Brian Gallagher, his new boyfriend, is getting serious too, even if Carlo doesn't know a lot about Gallagher, and Gallagher at once is supportive of his political campaign and soon after refuses to be too much involved.
Carlo and Gallagher's relationship is strange, since it starts abruptly, so abruptly that the reader realizes that they have a sexual relationship from little hints and not since he had the chance to read something about it; there is a scene in which Carlo is thinking to call Gallagher to ask the guy out, and few pages after, Carlo and Gallagher are steadily dating, and probably something is happening between them... I was a bit disoriented, I even went back some pages to actually check if I missed to read something... Maybe the fact is that the focus of the novel is not the romance between Carlo and Gallagher, but more Carlo's growth as independent man. And to be independent, Carlo couldn't focus on Gallagher.
While we know about everything about Carlo, we know very little about Gallagher. He remains a mystery almost till the end, not only about his life, but also about his feelings for Carlo. Gallagher is strange, since he made things that are very tender, like bringing Carlo to know his family, but then he never gives any details on his life and feeling. Despite this, speaking of the romance, I prefer Gallagher's character, I feel like he is more involved on a personal level than Carlo. I really feel Carlo like a man following the flood, both in politics than love, but maybe this is due to the fact that he is still so young.
Anyway the book is a bit of a surprise, quite different from the others I read by the same authors, but not a negative one; only be warned, to be not disappointed from the lack of heavy romance aspects, usually so frequent in the Romentics novels.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1419620797/?...
May 12, 2011
As odd as it may sound, I had a hard time understanding what this book was about. I know the general storyline; gay guy gets involved with the gay marriage issue to the point that he runs for political office. But where I'm lost is in the numerous side stories that are going on, most of which I just couldn't follow. If you like politics then this is right up your alley because what this book isn't is a love story, not in the standard M/M way. It does have two guys who profess to love each other, and maybe they do, but their love/romance/relationship isn't the focus of this book, and that's a shame. The political shtick just didn't work for me.
Because of the too broad scope of the book I'm left scratching my head and thinking that I should give Nothing Personal two stars, but I just can't. Two and a half would be appropriate, but we aren't allowed that freedom, so I'll say three stars.
December 9, 2011
It was hard to get into this book, may be it was because of politics but I expected something else.
Sometimes the story just draged to much on the whole campain and the political oponents.
Sometimes the story just draged to much on the whole campain and the political oponents.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews