the other book review

Stephen C. McQueen, no, no rela­tion of the famous Steven McQueen, is in the act­ing busi­ness. If you can call it act­ing. He mostly plays the dead guy, a happy squir­rel and at the period of his life this book cov­ers he is a ghost. A ghost who is open­ing a door, let­ting some­one through, and clos­ing the door. ‘And that was it — walk on (ghostly), open door (slowly), bow (som­brely), close door (slowly), walk off (quickly).’ The one he has to let through the door is Josh Harper, the hottest, sex­i­est, gor­geous actor in the busi­ness who has it all: the looks, the money, the condo, and last but not least, the wife. In short; every­thing Stephen doesn’t have (any­more). How does Stephen cope with a friend­ship to this heart­throb? More impor­tantly: how does Stephen cope with the close friend­ship to Josh’s wife Nora?

Although Stephen is older than Brian, the main char­ac­ter in Nicholls’ pre­vi­ous book Starter for ten, the theme is the same: not really know­ing your­self and what you want out of life, then going through a rough and decid­ing time and com­ing out a bet­ter per­son.
And that is pre­cisely what I didn’t like about the book: a typ­i­cal com­ing of age novel shouldn’t be about a man in his thir­ties. You know how it is — the intox­i­cat­ing aphro­disiac that is fail­ure.’ ‘It’s not fail­ure. It’s post­poned suc­cess. We’re just late devel­op­ers, you and me. Well, that may be, but still, a man that just went with his life as it came with no ques­tions about this world and him­self I can believe when he is just out on his own (like Brian), with Stephen I had a hard time not to declare him a loser and lost case.
That said, it was a fun read, lots of humor and weird situations.

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