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Title: Oh, grow up!
Review: Dhalla's finely honed writing skills almost but not quite manage to mask the fact that his story is basically a whiny, insubstantial roman a clef that eventually grates. Maybe finding true love in Los Angeles is really this difficult, but it seems that the choices made by Dhalla's protagonist Ali are not especially wise. Street hustlers usually are not good husband material, a fact of gay life that cannot have been unknown to Ali, given his sexual and social history. Neither are promiscuous party boys, another object of Ali's misguided affections. No wonder he is miserable.Unfortunately, there is no relief for lovelorn Ali, whose unhappiness is the result of his own failings, not the fault of his suitors. This sort of gay self-loathing and failure to connect is a very old, very hackneyed plot.The book does have something to offer, however, in terms of seeing gay life from the perspective of the gay Asian and South Asian subculture, which is its only redeeming point.
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