Book Review: "The Romantic Tragedies of a Drama King" by Harry Trevaldwyn

Thanks so much to Wednesday Books and NetGalley for the complimentary advance copy of this book!

Patrick (call him “Patch”) is ready for an amazing school year. The thing he’s most looking forward to is finding a boyfriend, one whom he can take to Prom. The challenge is, the only openly gay boys in school are dating each other. So what now?

And then two boys arrive at the first drama club meeting of the year. Peter, an American from New York (fabulous) moved to England to live with his best friend Sam’s family. Patch is determined that one of them will be his boyfriend. (He’s fine with either of them.)

The thing is, Patch is full of personality. Maybe too full? He desperately wants to make a good impression on Peter and Sam but mostly winds up tripping over his words and embarrassing himself. The quest to get one of them to be his boyfriend gets more complicated when Sam doesn’t appear to like Patch, and Peter (who is bi) starts dating Tessa, Patch’s former friend and current nemesis.

As Patch tries to negotiate matters of the heart without tripping over himself, he has his devoted best friend Jean to confide in, as well as Ms. Beckett, a former teacher he’s appointed his life coach. He also relies on his mother’s self-help books, but they’re not particularly helpful in his case.

Patch is one of the most hysterically vain and egotistical characters who made me laugh at every turn. (To try and land the lead role in Sweeney Todd, he decided to shadow some barbers, for example.) This is a fun and sweet book about being yourself no matter how wacky and annoying you might be.

The book will publish 1/28.

Book Review: "The Way They Were: How Epic Battles and Bruised Egos Brought a Classic Hollywood Love Story to the Screen" by Robert Hofler

This new book gives a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the classic love story.

Do you like to know the stories behind famous movies, the things that might have changed everything if they had come to fruition? I’m always fascinated by film history, so when Kensington Books offered me an advance copy of this book, which looks at the hard road to get The Way We Were onto the screen, I jumped at the chance.

Celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, The Way We Were is a quintessential love story, about two completely different people in the 1930s—Katie, a Jewish activist who supports communism, and Hubbell, the handsome, privileged WASP—who fall in love and struggle with the world around them. The movie is on the American Film Institute’s list of top 10 movie romances.

While Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford seem tailor-made for their roles, the truth is, Redford didn’t want to make this movie. At first, he bristled against playing what he described as a “Ken doll” to Streisand, and he demanded that his role be expanded, so a bunch of screenwriters had to rework the script.

This was a really interesting story, a battle of egos, machinations, and compromises. What I found most fascinating is that Arthur Laurents, the original screenwriter, actually based the story on his own romance with his partner. Laurents was essentially the Streisand character while his partner, Tom Hatcher, was Redford.

Definitely a great read for film buffs and fans of this movie.