[WR8]≫ Libro Gratis Pansies A Spires Story Volume 4 Alexis Hall 9781626493070 Books

Pansies A Spires Story Volume 4 Alexis Hall 9781626493070 Books

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Pansies A Spires Story Volume 4 Alexis Hall 9781626493070 Books

Alexis Hall is one of the most astoundingly talented writers I've come across in a very, very long time. He's basically a poet trapped in a novelist's body. He describes the tiny moments of love and life, the fleeting thoughts everyone has and sometimes barely notice, with heartbreaking accuracy. I found myself thinking as I read, "yes, exactly like that." And his humor is truly hilarious.

This book is about many things, as another reviewer pointed out. Coming home, bullying, forgiveness, grief, longing, learning what it is to truly grow up and be who you were meant to be even if it disappoints people you love. Fen and Alfie are so real in their insecurities, prejudices, and ultimately in their love that this book was one of the more satisfying romances I've read in a while.

This would make an amazing movie. Just sayin'.

I'll say it again. The man is a poet. He should be famous.


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Pansies A Spires Story Volume 4 Alexis Hall 9781626493070 Books Reviews

The fourth book of the Spires Series, Pansies is slightly different from the previous books. In addition to being a love story, Pansies is a mediation on masculinity and identity. The pace is slower and the novel longer but trust me, it works for this story.

Alfie, the POV character, doesn’t realize how little he knows himself. He returns to the Northern English town he grew up in to attend a best friend’s wedding, where he outs himself in the most public way. Escaping from the wedding, he meets Fen in a bar, after which they share a passionate, unforgettable night together. I don’t want to spoil the story but I’ll just say Fen is someone Alfie once knew in grade school but doesn’t recognize. Alfie has only realized he is gay and possesses rigid beliefs about masculinity that he internalizes from his father and his local culture (one could even say, the entirety of western culture). Within that framework, he practices this form of masculinity exactly as it has been scripted for him, right down to the overachieving, the aversion to anything that smacks of femininity, the meaningless accumulation of wealth and status symbols. What makes Alfie so compelling is the way he is a stand in for so many men in western society.

Fen might be in a bit of a spot in his life but he knows himself. This gives him the certainty of self-knowledge that Alfie lacks, and the resilience to survive the hard moments in his life.

I loved this book because it grappled with some weighty issues. Love is not just a means of salvation, or of finding affinity. It becomes a path to self-realization, especially for Alfie. While the novel is mostly in Alfie’s POV, we get insight in to Fen’s thoughts through letters he addresses to his mother. They’re helpful in understanding how much Fen grows to love Alfie and renders a key decision Alfie makes towards the end all the more gripping – and frustrating.

Pansies is a wonderful entry in the series, a story to savor. It is written in Hall’s signature writing style – gorgeously crafted metaphors that never veer into purple prose and love scenes that are rooted in the characters and their relationship. He does so much in these books of a literary nature – I’d need to write another essay just on his writing style. The HEA is hard-earned, developed through the authentic negotiation of intimacy and trust. Gorgeous read, worth every last star.
A wonderful book, with that sparkling, elegant, oftimes hilarious, Alexis Hall prose. Hall’s sense of place and dialect is right up there with Harper Fox, and this substantial book sucked me into the small-town world of South Shields in northeast England. Alfie Bell and Fen O’Donaghue are vividly drawn young men, each full of his own distinctive humor and sadness. They fumble around each other in a sort of awkward-yet-fierce ballet, alternatively coming together and flying apart, as secrets are revealed and hidden wounds bleed and heal.

The Spires Story series seems to be linked only by the narrative premise of two seemingly ill-matched men being matched, by fate or chance or whatever, and having to cope with the mixture of pain and joy that ensues. Each of these books (of which this is the fourth) has a different setting, and these distinct geographical and culture locales within the UK become secondary characters that define and illuminate the protagonists. In “Pansies,” South Shields is the town where Alfie and Fen grew up, and from which both of them fled, for seemingly different reasons. The irony is that both men left South Shields to get away from who they were as youths, and yet both are drawn back to the town – and to each other – in spite of the unhappiness they remember.

Hall gives us scenes of outright slapstick – one in particular, involving a damaged bathroom wall, had me snorting and guffawing in a most inappropriate way in a posh private club in New York as I waited to deliver a lecture. This high humor is balanced with stabs of emotional pain as both Alfie and Fen try to find their way forward, each dealing with family-related sorrows and personal fears.

Ultimately, both Alfie and Fen are more than what they appear to be – to the reader as well as to each other. Alfie seems to be the consummate straight boy, struggling to embrace his true gay self; while Fen looks as gay as can be, in spite of the fact that he’s rather less gay than Alfie. This is an important leitmotif in the narrative – trying to live down what others think you are when all you really want is to be yourself. Because it is not just about sexual inclinations or personal mannerisms, it’s about the very nature of happiness and what that means to each of us.

I loved Alfie and Fen – each of them representing a kind of man that appeals to me very differently but with equal potency. That said, I felt there was rather more sex in this marvelous novel than there needed to be to make me believe and care and love these two characters. Maybe I’m just getting older; but I really think that it’s because I appreciate the writing and the story and the characters so much.
Alexis Hall is one of the most astoundingly talented writers I've come across in a very, very long time. He's basically a poet trapped in a novelist's body. He describes the tiny moments of love and life, the fleeting thoughts everyone has and sometimes barely notice, with heartbreaking accuracy. I found myself thinking as I read, "yes, exactly like that." And his humor is truly hilarious.

This book is about many things, as another reviewer pointed out. Coming home, bullying, forgiveness, grief, longing, learning what it is to truly grow up and be who you were meant to be even if it disappoints people you love. Fen and Alfie are so real in their insecurities, prejudices, and ultimately in their love that this book was one of the more satisfying romances I've read in a while.

This would make an amazing movie. Just sayin'.

I'll say it again. The man is a poet. He should be famous.