A editora Sourcebooks está com dois livros de temática gay que têm conquistado excelente recepção, CONVENTIONALLY YOURS, de Annabeth Albert, e BOYFRIEND MATERIAL, de Alexis Hall. CONVENTIONALLY YOURS mereceu uma crítica consagradora na lista de melhores romances para o próximo verão nos EUA.
A Book Review do New York Times afirma que uma aposta popular e de vendas não exclui diversão inteligente e afetiva. “Albert faz uma investigação mais profunda e sensível do que é o amor do que a maioria dos romanções”, elogia a resenha.
Nossa cliente Sourcebooks se notabiliza por um catálogo muito popular e comercial na área de romances e literatura jovem–adulto, entre outros segmentos. Para a VBM, a se observar é a naturalização da homossexualidade, se não da temática LGBT como um todo, no campo da ficção rigorosamente comercial e mainstream, antes domínio da literatura política, engajada, experimental. Simplesmente histórias de amor.
Abaixo a crítica do NYT, que, além de aplaudir, conta a proposta de CONVENTIONALLY YOURS, escrito por uma autora, mas envolvendo dois protagonistas masculinos na faixa dos 20 e poucos anos. Uma narrativa com a qual todo jovem pode se identificar – um mix de dificuldades financeiras, frustrações acadêmicas e descoberta da sexualidade:
THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW: Best Romances of Summer 2020
High stakes don’t have to preclude fun, as proved by Annabeth Albert in the sweet and witty CONVENTIONALLY YOURS (Sourcebooks, 389 pp., paper, $14.99). Conrad and Alden are part of a crew that plays a Magic the Gathering-like card game called Odyssey on the vlog Gamer Grandpa. The team’s invited to a large Odyssey convention in Las Vegas, where they’ll play in a tournament for a chance to join the Odyssey pro league. Conrad and Alden both need this win desperately: Conrad’s father stopped paying for college, so he had to drop out and is working odd jobs to pay for his asthma medicine; Alden didn’t get into med school for the second consecutive year, and is being pressured by his moms to pick a new career path. (Both men are in their early 20s, but they read young, giving this a young adult — or new adult — crossover feel.) After the rest of the Gamer Grandpa crew gets deus-ex-machina’d off the road trip to Vegas, Conrad and Alden find themselves driving cross-country alone together, and their prickly rivalry slowly falls away to reveal what’s long been simmering underneath. That burgeoning attraction and connection is lovely and believable, coming in fits and flourishes that catch Conrad and Alden off guard. Once the plot setup is out of the way, the book becomes beautifully straightforward: two young men, alone together, discovering their feelings for each other. Albert makes a deeper and more sensitive investigation into what love is than most romances — or, if not an investigation, then an argument: It’s wanting to care for someone, being cared for by them, and also a lot, a lot, a lot of making out.
