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Love the One You're With (B-Boy Blues) |
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Amazon Sales Rank: 1373075
Publication Date: 2002-06-01
Release Date: 2002-05-14
Publisher: Amistad
ISBN: 0066212480
Type: Hardcover
Number Of Pages: 272
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Do men and monogamy mix? It's not a question Mitchell Little Bit Crawford gave much thought to until his beaufriend of almost two years, Raheim Pooquie Rivers, an All-American jeans model, heads to Hollywood to make his first feature film. As Mitchell soon discovers, the temptation to cheat is very real. In fact, it seems to be everywhere: at his job, in his lawyer's office, at restaurants, the shopping mall, and in the recording studio. An ex even pops up hoping to pick up where they left -- and got -- off. While intrigued, Mitchell chalks all the attention up to "the married man" syndrome: one is much more desirable when they're attached to someone else.But as he continues to run into bisexual musician Montgomery "Montee" Simms, the look but don't touch rule is put to the test. As he and Montee get closer, Mitchell's idealistic beliefs about commitment are challenged. Will he love the one he's with because he can't be with the one he loves?
Average Rating: 
Review: 2008-07-23
The Ugly Side Of Race And Sexuality
The main problem with Love The One You're With - like others in this series - is that it takes itself too seriously. The plot - such as it is - is pure soap.
Mitchell's partner, Raheim, is out of town, and Mitchell is suddenly faced with an onslaught of attractive men vying for his attention. Naturally, they're all super-attractive, big-booty bruthas desperate for Mitchell; they're all either hyper-masculine or hyper-groomed. This might have been funny, had it not been handled with such a lack of modesty by our 'hero' (who is, naturally, attractive and talented in equal measures) and becomes increasingly tedious and unbelievable. Conceit and self-importance are a turn-off for most people, and these suppsoed suitors would turn on the haughty Mr. Crawford as rapidly as the reader does.
It's the unappealing characters who fill the pages that really grate on the nerves. Never before have so many vain, judgemental, bitching queens been assembled. Hardy's work has been called 'the black gay Sex And The City' by some, a libellous slur on that show. At best, Hardy's brand of 'razor sharp wit' is banal carping. At worst, it's a dangerous, unnecessarily vicious attack on those Hardy judges as the enemy in his war on racial harmony.
What are young men of mixed black/white (or any other mix) parentage to make of a book that tells them they are born of a fraud? Or the multitude of men in interracial relationships, who are told they are living a lie? Hardy has set himself up as the ultimate authority on issues of race and sexuality, and from his position on high, has decided what is right and what is wrong. Unfortunately, in his world, everything is black and white. No room is left for those who don't fit his narrow world view. It's wrong for a black man and a white man to love one another, apparently, because the white man is using the black man to live out slave fantasies. Okay, so what if two mixed-race men love one another? Is that permitted in Hardy's world? Or doesn't mixed-race count as black? How black do you have to be, one wonders, if you are only ever one or the other? It seems that Hardy's characters prove their 'blackness' by denigrating Caucasians at every opportunity. Every Caucasian encountered in the book, or referred to, is either an out-and-out racist or worse still a cringe-inducing pseudo liberal (Hardy sees no difference between the two. A liberal is merely a redneck in disguise, or one attempting to salve their guilty conscience).
As an aside, it's worth noting that Hardy considers it wrong for white men to fetishise black men (it's BAD AND WRONG if they find large lips, dark skin or a big booty attractive), yet Hardy has deemed it okay for his middle-class, sanctimonious lead, Mitchell, to fetishise the down-low, straight-out-tha-ghetto lover, Raheim.
Hardy vastly over-estimates his own intellectual stature. Take the scene in which Mitchell interviews a black (gay) republican. Mitchell floors the republican with some cutting questions. I'm sorry, but reality check, Mr. Hardy! Almost any politician would have a slick comeback rehearsed - politicians know how to deal with difficult questions, and those Hardy (I'm sorry, Mitchell) puts aren't rocket science. Has Hardy ever actually spoken to a black republican, or even read any books penned by one? Hardy wishes to establish Mitchell's, and by extension, his own intellectual standing, yet everyone he meets who dares to have a different opinion is a babbling idiot, unable to make any argument once Mitchell opens his mouth. The reader is left with the distinct impression that Hardy is so righteous that he has never listened to anyone who might have a different point of view.
His style of writing itself is peculiar. Desperately trying to be hip and trendy, he comes across as patronising and holier-than-thou. If his target audience is young black men (which it clearly is) then he clearly has a low opinion of them. At times it's rather like reading a lecture by a boring do-gooder. Even his fans have criticised his long, tedious digressions into politics, education, or whichever issue happened to cross his mind on a given day. There's a particularly bad chapter in a supermarket where Mitchell is standing in line, which tries to come across as a Jerry Seinfeld "have you ever noticed how..." moment, and fails miserably.
There are seemingly endless pages of filler. Trying to up the word count from his last effort, the wafer- thin The Day Eazy-E Died, Hardy gives us lengthy catalogues of the songs played in whichever club the characters find themselves in. He describes in minute detail the menu every time a character has a meal. And there are whole chapters of meaningless fluff, in which Mitchell and Raheim have late night, long distance "I miss you" calls. None of this furthers the plot, or character development, and serves only to antagonise. It's another indication of the author being so in awe of his creations, that he expects his readers to be intrigued by every detail of their lives.
The first novel in this series, published a couple of hundred years ago (or at least that's how it feels) was fresh and original, and lacked much (if not all) of the spite and nastiness of its successors. But Hardy has proven himself to be a cynical opportunist, shamelessly flogging this dead horse for all it's worth. Worse still, a sixth (and apparently final) instalment is to follow.
And after 262 pages of righteousness, we're told that it's okay to cheat on your lover, so long as you don't actually kiss the other man. At least it's in keeping with the tone of the rest of the book.
Review: 2008-07-14
Didn't quite get it....
I had read B-Boy Blues years ago. I saw this one in the library and decided it must be as good. It wasn't. When Mitchell got missing and was with Monte and Pooqui never mentioned it, that threw me. Especially since Pooqui was so jealous of Mitchell being around other men. Also when Pooqui got missing and never really stated where he was that was a suprise that Mitchell didn't once think he was in Cali getting his freak on. Some other things didn't add up either. Im not sure if I will read more books by Mr Hardy but the summer aint over yet.
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Amazon List Price: $22.95
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