Tin Man

I feel this was sadly overhyped to me. Nevertheless, it's a beautiful little book, talking of love and friendship, about dreams and regrets, about the prisons others put us in, and about loss and grief. It jumps in time, with a gentle introspective narration, sketching slight mysteries about how our main protagonist Ellis ended up where he ended up. We spend time with him in the here and now, as he's living a quiet life full of sadness, slowly making new connections to people he's shut out for long. And we get to know his past, by visiting moments of his youth and adolescence and early adulthood, happy years he spent with his best friend Michael. They become lovers, yet were not meant to be. A lot of this feels very [b:Call Me by Your Name 36336078 Call Me by Your Name André Aciman https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1519203520s/36336078.jpg 1363157] - which is probably an unfair critique, as a lot of gay romances have to deal with similar themes, the secrecy, the self doubt, the escape to a happy else-where, the return to reality. But, why did this book also have to mention so many peaches?! :) Hard not to read it as a nod to Aciman's novel. I was all sold on the book in the first half, the melancholy, the quiet moments, the hint of an epic love (or two), but then I feel it somehow lost it's stride in the 2nd half. The different narration style, when it came to Michael's side of the story, didn't fully blend in. Also, it all became a bit too sentimental (that ending with the photograph, It was a moment in time, that's all, shared with strangers.) for my taste. Or maybe it was too slim, not giving me enough time to fully attach to the characters, to actually grief them. 3.5