Bernard Jan's Blog - Posts Tagged "jonathan-hill"

Not Just a Boy by Jonathan Hill

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Not Just a Boy is a warm coming-of-age human story about growing up and first love(s). A 78-pages-long novella – we can only wish it lasts longer! – of the talented author Jonathan Hill from Manchester, UK, takes us gently back to our childhood and school days where everything seemed to have been easier, carefree and more innocent. Unless . . . you were different.

For one of the two best friends moving to another school was everything but easy or innocent. Not being able to fit into the new environment, in difference to his friend, he is immediately labeled an outcast, unfit, different. His adolescent days unexpectedly turn into a nightmare of name-calling, ridiculing, bullying and physical assault; it seems like everybody knows about his schoolboy crush much sooner than him, even before he is fully able to comprehend the truth about himself. “There was precious little evidence, and certainly nothing concrete, to confirm that I liked boys. I just knew that I’d fallen for him. And if he’d been a girl or a . . . or a frog . . . maybe I would have felt just the same love towards her or it.”

Evidence or not, society doesn't forgive, and certainly not his school mates. Being different, being a boy with a crush on another boy, has a high price. And the price of being different he has to pay with broken friendships, isolation and loneliness, shame, confusion and torment.

After a grand opening, “I have been running for only a minute, maybe two, and yet their frenzied shouts are oddly distant, as if they originate not only from another part of the wood but from another time entirely. Every inch of me is riddled with pain and if I stop to think how bad the pain actually is, it is enough to make me want to tear off my limbs with my own teeth.”, and the tragedy that preceded this running but has been revealed only later in the book, at the end of the story, Jonathan Hill leads us to a pleasantly calming sunset of this remarkable novella, which warms our hearts with a promise of restored friendship and hope for a normal life despite being different.

Special kudos to the book cover art which just about perfectly captures the story that is about to grip and glue us from the first page already.

BJ
www.bernardjan.com



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Not Just a Boy
Jonathan Hill
Bernard Jan

When I was kindly invited by my friend and colleague Dario Cannizzaro, author of Of Life, Death, Aliens and Zombies – a great collection of short stories I was privileged to read and review – and a debut novel Dead Men Naked – to be released by the end of this year – to write a post about my writing pet peeve, my first thought was, oh no, I am going to publicly whine!

Whining or not, fact is that my biggest pet peeve is time, or better to say lack of it, accompanied by distraction. What on earth does that mean?

Well, time is all but relative and certainly I do not have it. As much as I try to organize my working day and the noise of my thoughts inside my head and the world outside it, I simply do not know, at this moment in time (again this precious word time!), when to sit down and start writing. (Maybe I should do that standing?! Or walking?! Or in my dreams, when I remember I had dreamed??)

I am not complaining, though it would be easier to do so! But after coming home from work, doing my regular networking hours, sending queries to literary agents (I am not doing that on a daily basis but nonetheless have to prepare myself mentally and emotionally for that sacred mission and highly important quest), writing posts for my blogs, updating my web page and social platforms, going through 50-100 emails depending on a daily e-traffic, I barely have energy to grab and read some book from my 90-something-high-pile of unread books (recently I regularly fall asleep and doze off more than once while reading because I am too tired to push my body and mind a little bit further), let alone write something. It's not that I don't have ideas and that my muse ran away to sell itself to someone else. I do! What I don't have is energy.

And TIME.

When I write I need to have my peace in order to escape this world and lose myself in my fictional world. This is when I switch realities, the real one with imaginary one. Yes, the imaginary reality is where I inhabit when I write, where I live with my characters, when I am a part of them and they become a part of me, where I make them miserable, kill them and mourn over them, where they break my heart.

Where we love each others.

In that world I don't want distraction with little or big things from this world I am trying to evade and forget, in that new world I have my new life which serves its purpose to create and build for the pleasure and entertainment of others. I am creating with love and dedication, revealing and showing what I love, with hope to share it one day with those who will appreciate it.

I don't want to be superficial and do it just for the sake of writing something and commercializing it. I want to do it out of love, to make something valuable and everlasting. My contribution to the world I will leave behind one day, soon enough.

So when I create, I need my peace and my time to write. Those are the diamonds I need to find and dig out from the muddy waters of my everyday life. When I find enough time, I will eventually find peace too. I will shut myself out from this world and move to another place and time. And if I cannot find time in this real time, I will dive into the well of my imagination, grab the remote and press pause.

As time continues its flux and events happen one after another without stopping, as seconds tick away one after another on their way to eternity and oblivion, my time will keep standing. My minutes will stretch into hours, days if necessary, and I will finish what I need to do. I will complete my task, my mission, my new creation I love and will gladly share with others who will appreciate it once I press play on my imaginary remote again and our times and worlds merge again into one on its continuous way into the unknowns of the future.

I thank Larysia, the poet from Canada who started this blog hop I am part of now and once again I thank Dario for introducing me to her.

With full confidence and great expectations I pass the question about writing pet peeves to my friends and fellow authors Angel Ramon Medina, author of the Thousand Years War Series and leader of the Hybrid Nation, and Jonathan Hill, author of Not Just a Boy, A Christmas Outing, FAG and the Maureen books . Don't forget to check out their web pages in the coming days to learn about their pet peeves! Thank you!

BJ
www.bernardjan.com
Bernard Jan

A Christmas Outing by Jonathan Hill

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I happened to be on a tram on my morning ride to work when David's mother rip-opens the parcel her daughter has sent as a gift from Australia and pulls out of it a vibrating pink penis with a gift-tag around it. David stares open-mouthed at the sight of it, his boyfriend Jamie drops the remains of the biscuit he is eating in his lap, David's dad is laughing. David's mother looks from her husband to penis and from penis to her husband and asks, confused, “What . . . What is it?!” This propels David's dad into an even louder laughter, which is followed by a sudden blare of rap music ringtone from his phone he still doesn't know how to turn off.

At this point David is really annoyed at his futile attempts and all distraction. It is all too much for him so he yells: “I’m gay and I’m going out with Jamie and I love hiiiiiiiiim!” This scene is an ultimate climax of a hilariously funny novella A Christmas Outing by Jonathan Hill.

It is Christmas market time and 19-year-old David is going to visit it with his parents. This time, though, his boyfriend Jamie is coming along. David has something very important to announce to his parents tonight and Jamie is there to support him. Coming out to his parents is too complicated and not easy at all and Jamie is going to be there to be by his side and help him in any way he can.

A Christmas Outing is teeming with funny scenes and brilliant and comic dialogues of one dysfunctional family which is trying to survive Christmas time. A dominating mother and a submissive father who keep arguing about every little thing (sounds familiar, anybody?!), David's Psycho Sister who fled as far away as possible from her family and who sends sex stuff as gifts to her parents – her mom especially, and David who is the whole evening laboriously plotting a plan to admit to his parents that he is different, that he has a boyfriend, so he can be accepted and be himself more than he ever was.

Jonathan Hill is a master of building a suspense and expectation around David's coming out. He makes us smile, giggle, snort and laugh from one situation to another throughout this whole heartwarming and honest comedy short story that will make everybody feel good despite the serious issue of coming out which it covers in order for everyone who is and feel different to become recognized and labeled within the set and acknowledged categories of our society. His characters are very functional, realistic and alive, and we have certainly met their real-life versions at some point in our lives.

After Not Just a Boy, A Christmas Outing is another smashing success by Jonathan Hill I had luck and pleasure of reading. My pleasure would be even greater if I didn't have to suppress funny sounds that were threatening to burst out of me in a hysterical laughter in a tram full of people when David from the screen of my smartphone mused: My sister is on the other side of the world, in a different time zone and season and still she manages to piss on the bonfire I haven’t yet lit.

Wonderful, simply wonderful!! Five grins as big and shiny as five stars!

BJ
www.bernardjan.com

p.s. Jonathan, maybe I should come out and admit that I fell in love with your writing?! (Here comes another big grin which you can see only with your mind's eye!)



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Bernard Jan

This Crazy Thing I Call My Life by Jonathan Hill

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Already in A Christmas Outing David and Jamie made me guffaw both in public and within the intimate safety of my home. The brisk, adorable and cracking humor continued to entertain me as well throughout the second book of teenage boyfriends This Crazy Thing I Call My Life by Jonathan Hill.

David and Jamie are now a real couple and it is only appropriate that their parents meet and get to know one another. While Jamie's parents are proud of their gay son and celebrate his homosexuality, David's parents are more closeted about their feelings. When these two families meet on a family gathering, it is easy to guess what the outcome will be!

Not discouraged by the eventful dinner and their first proper argument that follows, Jamie is determined to bring their families together and plots with David another family reunion. This time it is a parents-only reunion, because the boys have something else on their minds....

This Crazy Thing I Call My Life is ripe with funny situations and characters and it is a worthy sequel to the hilarious A Christmas Outing. If you like (British) humor and laughter, grab these two novellas and read them! Jonathan Hill is a great writer and entertainer. He, David and Jamie have the potential to give us a lot more laughter and are hiding plenty of new things in store for us. Somehow I feel it's going to be hot soon and this heat won't have much to do with the summer heatwaves!

Bernard Jan
www.bernardjan.com

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The Stars Just Watch by Jonathan Hill

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


"I just wish that we could be honest. (...) I just wish - I wish - everyone around us knew about us. And once they know, they know and that's it. There's nothing else to fear. (...) The thing I fear most is the thing I want most to happen."

The Stars Just Watch is a powerful story of profound love that happens in the wrong time and wrong place. A story that wraps us in its aching embrace as the stars wrap the night on the eve of destruction. When lives part because the battle cry is calling, leaving those who stay to wait and hope and tremble in desperation.

The night sky is sparkling with stars and each star is a tear from heaven shining on the faces of Jack and Cliff. In their last evening together, in their last embrace, a hug, a kiss, a firm grip of fingers. "If you die, then I shall kill myself. I shall. I shall kill myself!"

Jonathan Hill condemned us to the heart-wrenching and gut gripping war story full of grace, pain and darkness we drink in one gulp as a bitter remedy. A story of two men in love, forbidden, doomed and hidden under the cover of brotherhood. But as the war has no mercy to the millions of people all over Europe, their secret is merciless to Jack and Cliff. As a sudden flash from a gun, it lights up and hits the face of Cliff's wife Violet with a shock of recognition and realization, crumbling their world like the house of cards they played only hours ago.

No love should be hidden as the worst imaginable crime. No two lovers should suffer as Jack and Cliff did. Their dream is simple, honest, so common.

"The sun is shining. (...) And we are walking through a park together. We're looking at the trees and you're pointing out a squirrel to me. (...) We continue to walk. And the entire time, the entire time, we are holding hands. (...) You say that your hand feels safe, nestled in my own. But mine feels just as safe wrapped around yours. Then we turn a corner and there are people. People everywhere. (...) And everyone is going about their own business. And we walk amongst them holding hands, and not one person turns to look at us. No one stops, no one stares. No one turns. And it is beautiful."

The Stars Just Watch is a new version of the story previously released under the title Is it Her?.

Please also read my reviews of Not Just a Boy, A Christmas Outing and This Crazy Thing I Call My Life by the same author.

BJ
www.bernardjan.com

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Bernard Jan



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It's been a long and exciting year and we are all sorting our impressions at the eve of the new year. Some of us are relaxing, others are sick and trying to get better (like my parents), but we all wish for the smooth transition from the old to the new year.

Whatever our plans are for these last days of 2017, it's always good to spend time with our best friends—books! Here I have made a list for you, a few suggestions of the books I enjoyed and loved reading in 2017.

This list is reduced because I couldn't list all the authors and books I loved reading, so I hope they will forgive me for that. Some of them I have already recommended in my earlier post In the Making and Out Now, others I will mention in my future posts.

Without further ado, here are my book recommendations. I start with my favorite book I read in 2017 and continue in random order.

Call Me by Your Name by André Aciman
Call Me by Your Name is the story of a sudden and powerful romance that blossoms between an adolescent boy and a summer guest at his parents' cliffside mansion on the Italian Riviera. Each is unprepared for the consequences of their attraction, when, during the restless summer weeks, unrelenting currents of obsession, fascination, and desire intensify their passion and test the charged ground between them. Recklessly, the two verge toward the one thing both fear they may never truly find again: total intimacy. It is an instant classic and one of the great love stories of our time.

Hounded by Ellie Douglas
When Calloway Foster woke up that morning, he never expected it to be a deathblow to life on earth. Nothing can prepare him for one of the world's most loved species to turn into the undead. Four-legged zombies now run rampant-hungry and intelligent, they are merciless to those still struggling to survive. Will he find his twin brother in time? Can he keep his family safe? A terrifying surprise twist will test the survivors to the brink of humanity’s very existence.

Innocence Taken by Victoria M. Patton
A young girl’s dismembered body is found on the side of the road in rural Illinois with no ID or clues left with the body. Who could do this to a beautiful young girl? Lt. Damien Kaine, the recently promoted head of the Vicious Crimes Unit out of Division Central in Chicago, and his partner Detective Joe Hagan are assigned to the case. When the little evidence they have leads to the possibility that more girls have gone missing over the last ten years, and one of their own is being stalked by the killer, Profiler FBI Special Agent McGrath is brought in to assist. Having to work with the FBI agent and deal with his personal demons waging battle against him, the already stressful case, is almost unbearable for Kaine.

The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker
On a seemingly ordinary Saturday in a California suburb, 11-year-old Julia and her family awake to discover, along with the rest of the world, that the rotation of the earth has suddenly begun to slow. The days and nights grow longer and longer, gravity is affected, the environment is thrown into disarray. Yet as she struggles to navigate an ever-shifting landscape, Julia is also coping with the normal disasters of everyday life. As Julia adjusts to the new normal, the slowing inexorably continues.

Rusticles by Rebecca Gransden
In Hilligoss, a tired man searches for a son, a flamingo enthrals the night, and fireworks light up the lost. In these stories and more, Rusticles offers a meandering tour through backroads bathed in half light, where shadows play along the verges and whispers of the past assault daydreams of the present. Walk the worn pathways of Hilligoss.

The Stars Just Watch by Jonathan Hill
Tonight four sit round a table playing cards. Tomorrow two leave to fight. Over an evening already fraught with tension, emotions run deep and life-shattering secrets threaten to escape. A powerful novella from the author of FAG, Pride and Not Just a Boy. This is a new version of the story previously released under the title Is it Her?.

Holy Cow by David Duchovny
Elsie Bovary is a cow and a pretty happy one at that. Until one night, Elsie sneaks out of the pasture and finds herself drawn to the farmhouse. Through the window, she sees the farmer's family gathered around a bright Box God—and what the Box God reveals about something called an 'industrial meat farm' shakes Elsie's understanding of her world to its core. The only solution? To escape to a better, safer world. And so a motley crew is formed: Elsie; Shalom, a grumpy pig who's recently converted to Judaism; and Tom, a suave turkey who can't fly, but can work an iPhone with his beak. Toting stolen passports and slapdash human disguises, they head for the airport...

The Last Night at Tremore Beach: A Novel by Mikel Santiago
Recently divorced and in the middle of a creative crisis, Peter Harper decides to take shelter on the scenic and isolated Tremore Beach in Ireland. But one stormy night he is struck by lightning and, as a result, begins experiencing terrible headaches and strange dreams. As the line between his dreams and reality begin to blur, Peter realizes that his bizarre visions may be a warning of horror still to come...

As you can see, I didn't list one particular book that is special to me and that is my novella A World Without Color, a true story of the last three days I spent with my cat Marcel. Despite that, I hope you will get the chance to read it and get back to me with your thoughts, if nothing else than in a form of your honest review.

Happy reading, hope you enjoy the books from my post too!

Best wishes for a great new year full of amazing books and stories!

BJ
www.bernardjan.com

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Bernard Jan

Pride by Jonathan Hill

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


What do you remember most from your first Pride? Are you still making plans for your first Pride? Or you think it is all just a bunch of crap wrapped up in the glittering human rights propaganda?

To teenage boy Liam his first Gay Pride march is everything. Not even traveling by himself to another town and lying to his parents can prevent him to attend it. Because Liam reached the point when he accepted himself for who he was and now he seeks the acceptance of others too.

But is he ready to accept the dire consequences of his actions and coming out to another teenage boy, a stranger to him? Can he embrace the pain and guilt of a caterpillar spreading its rainbow-colored wings as a new butterfly?

Tender is the way and splashed with the right dose of humor with which Jonathan Hill makes us to befriend and love the characters in his novella Pride. It’s a brutally honest and beautifully realistic story which begs for your attention. In other words, a must-read!

Bernard Jan
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Bernard Jan



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Mo Mo Mo! Merry Christmas, Maureen! by Jonathan Hill

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


If I’ve read this novella during the Xmas time, I would be less depressed than I was on that day.

Jonathan Hill is again brilliant in making me laugh with his natural sense of humor. Throughout the whole story you grin at Maureen’s wickedness and silliness, and then he makes your eye shine with a stranded tear of her kindness.

Even if Xmas is not your favorite time of the year, you will like the warmth and find joy in reading Mo Mo Mo! Merry Christmas, Maureen! story.

Thanks, J, for your gift!

BJ
www.bernardjan.com


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Bernard Jan

Offstage by Jonathan Hill

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


A kiss and drunken lips. Is it a close friendship between Daniel and Nathan or the birth of the first love?

Who speaks the truth when youthful lust gets the cold shoulder?

Love cannot be killed. If it cannot be reciprocated it must be endured.

In Offstage Jonathan Hill gets more sexual, more erotic, more sensual, more emotional, more unforgiving, more everything.

More a writer.

I needed a break after reading this story. And a few moments of solitude. Jonathan Hill can do that to you. There lies his brilliancy.

Read him!

BJ
www.bernardjan.com



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Bernard Jan

Maureen's (Not So Great) British Cake Off by Jonathan Hill

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Once again, he did it. Jonathan Hill proved his sophisticated sense and talent to humor and entertain with his brand-new Maureen and Tim story in which Maureen hosts a cake-baking contest for her friends to show off her new beautiful garden. Maureen's (Not So Great) British Cake Off is funny, witty, clever and entertaining from the beginning to the end. With its set of thoughtfully picked characters and amusing dialogues, it is bound to make you swing, sway and double over with laughter.

If you haven’t already read anything about Maureen and Tim, this is your giggling moment. Maureen’s (Not So Great) British Cake Off is funny all around!

BJ
www.bernardjan.com

My reviews of A Surprise for Maureen and Mo Mo Mo! Merry Christmas, Maureen!.

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Bernard Jan



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