“Wrestling with Love”–facing challenges

Starr, Doug. “Wrestling with Love”, Ai Books, 2011.

Facing the Challenges

Amos Lassen

Not long ago I predicted that Doug Star would be a guy to watch after I reviewed his first two books. I am convinced I am right about this and he proved it to me with his new book, “Wrestling with Love” which premiered yesterday as an ebook. We all know something about love and many times we forget that it takes work to be in love.

Derek Thompson and Scott Thayer became friends when they were still in high school and they faced issues that many of us could not have stood. Now they are in college and they finally have an opportunity to build a life together. They now don’t have to answer to anyone and they have the time and place to deal with their feelings. Or at least this is what they think. As gay people there are challenges for us everywhere and I think that we sometimes forget that love is one of the biggest challenges of all. Derek feels it is time to acknowledge who he is to the world and he wants to live openly. Scott, on the other hand, feels that he is not ready to be out to that degree and prefers a more private lifestyle.

But that is not all. There is another character who comes into the story—Tyrell Jackson, another freshman finds Derek irresistible and wants him for his own. This threatens what Scott and Derek have and they are forced to do some introspection and make decisions that can change their lives forever.

I think it is important to note that although our characters are young, the issues they face are the same for all ages and just the degree may change. All of us face difficult choices throughout life.

Derek and Scott not only need to define their relationship they need to find the courage to be who they are and accept themselves and that is what they face here. Starr gives us two very real characters and that is probably because we see something of ourselves in them. Starr has taken a very delicate and difficult problem and thrown it out to the two men to deal with it. Whether they succeed or not, you will have to read the book to find out. The writing is wonderful, the character development is excellent and the plot is one of the best that I have read in quite a while. Starr seems to have found himself the age group to write about and it is so good that someone is looking at young love.