Reviewed by Donna

 

TITLE: Pray The Gay Away

SERIES: A Southern Thing #1

AUTHOR: Sara York

PUBLISHER: Self Published

LENGTH: 316 Pages

BLURB: Star football player, Jack Miller, had it all. The perfect family, looks, girls hanging on his every word, and the respect of most people in his town. But one thing was missing–a man to be his own.

When Andrew Collins showed up in small town, conservative Sweet, Georgia, he looked more scrawny mutt than high school senior. Andrew’s plan was to keep his head down and graduate high school, leaving his family behind to start his real life.

When he meets Andrew, Jack thinks he’s found heaven, but reality holds him in check until one night when his lips gently slide across Andrew’s and fireworks go off.

As lust and something a little deeper brings them together, compelling them to take chances, people start to notice. Then the unthinkable happens, and Jack’s parents find out he likes guys. The battle lines are drawn and they vow to pray the gay away.

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TITLE: Sending Jack Off To Jesus

SERIES: A Southern Thing #2

AUTHOR: Sara York

PUBLISHER: Self Published

LENGTH: 267 Pages

BLURB: Jack Miller has more than he could ask for with Andrew as his boyfriend, but it’s being taken away from him and there isn’t anything he can do. His father knows he’s gay, and his mother wants him to have sex with a girl to make sure he’s not mistaken.

Andrew Collins has found the perfect home in foster care with Cole and Melinda Kemp, but it won’t last. The DA thinks his parents have proven they’ve changed, but Andrew doesn’t believe the change will last.

Just when Jack and Andrew think it can’t get any worse, it does. Jack’s father sends him to New Life Christian Camp, a program that promises to pray the gay away. But Andrew has it worse as his father takes out his anger on him, leaving him near death.

Both Jack and Andrew are lost to each other, their lives in tatters all because their parents wanted to pray the gay away.

 

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TITLE: My Big Fat Southern Gay Wedding

SERIES: A Southern Thing #3

AUTHOR: Sara York

PUBLISHER: Self Published

LENGTH: 171 Pages

BLURB: When he was a kid, Jack Miller thought life would be a certain way, then he figured out he liked boys and not girls, changing the course of his future. Jack has spent the last few years learning that life doesn’t always give you what you expect, in both good and bad ways.

Andrew’s gone missing and Jack’s parents have split. He’s made it through high school, but the future is nothing without Andrew. To be complete, Jack knows he needs to find Andrew and bring him home. But Andrew has disappeared.

Lost doesn’t even begin to describe how Andrew Collins feels. Homeless and destitute, he’s ready to end it all. Thinking that Jack is dead, Andrew returns to Sweet to end his life on Jack’s grave. Instead, he finds lies were told that drove him to a path of destruction.

After not seeing each other for almost a year, Jack and Andrew come together, but their problems don’t end there. They must work hard to make it to their big fat Southern gay wedding or risk losing it all.

 

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REVIEW: “We’re going to pray like we’ve never prayed before. The gay is going to be gone from your life forever. You’ve chosen a path of death. Your mother and I are here to make sure you make a different decision. We’ll pray the gay away if it takes a lifetime.”

Normally if I’m reviewing a series I’ll write a separate review for each book. However this is a little different in that I wouldn’t actually call these books a series. Instead I would say these three separate parts complete one story, a 750 page epic tale of strength, survival and above all love that left me feeling emotionally drained in a way no other story has done for quite some time.

I’ve read a ton of other reviews on these books. Before receiving the request for this review I had Pray the Gay Away on my to-read list but was umming and ahhing over whether I actually wanted to read it. Even reading the blurb made my stomach twist with nerves. It was pretty obvious these two boys were going to be experiencing some difficult times but, holy shit, I had no idea. I’m not really a huge fan of books that tear my heart out, though surprisingly many of my favorite books do just that. To be honest, if I had known just how much angst lies waiting behind these book covers, I don’t think I would have chosen to read that first book. And just so you know, that is all I agreed to review. Pray the Gay Away, the first book. The addition of the second and third book to this review was a last minute decision and I’m not even sure if it was a decision or a necessity. Once I finished the first book I sat down to write my review and thought –who the hell am I kidding? There was no way I could concentrate on anything until I knew what happened to Jack and Andrew. I went straight online and purchased the next two books because I couldn’t even wait for the time it would take to receive review copies. I ended up spending the entire day sitting on one end of the couch reading all three of those books. In the end, my eyes were sore, my head ached, my butt had long gone numb and my family was hungry and pissed off.

Back to those other reviews I mentioned reading. At the time I wrote this, Pray the Gay Away had 98 reviews and a rating of 3.77 on Goodreads. Now I don’t know what that would mean to anyone else but to me a 3.77 is at the higher end of my average to good range. But what caught my attention pretty much instantly was the dearth of average to good ratings for this book. Instead the book has an obvious polarizing effect on readers with the majority of ratings being 5 stars only to be countered by a slew of 1 and 2 star ratings. The main complaint? People were not at all happy with the cliffhanger endings of books one and two. Now, of course I’m not a fan of cliffhangers, seriously is anyone? While I can’t claim to know why she published as three separate books I’m going to take Sara York’s side on this one and admit that I would have hesitated over reading a 750 page book. Also on the positive list, the books were basically released together, one straight after the other and at a very reasonable price. Obviously people are entitled their own opinion, this is just my own.

But onto my review of the story itself. Erm, sorry. I’m not even nearly finished yet.

“Will you be my boyfriend?”

When Jack speaks those brave words to Andrew they are both so innocent and hopeful. Jack has known for many years that he’s gay and is just counting down the seconds until he can leave for college and finally be who he really is. Something that’s impossible when you live at home with your fanatical, homophobic father who is the much respected pastor of the local church. But the moment he spots Andrew, the new boy in town, all his intentions of waiting until he escapes town fly out the window.

Andrew has previously kissed two other boys and has been caught each time by his bigoted hate filled parents. He has no idea what popular football star Jack sees in him but Jack is the first person in a very long time to actually show him any kindness. When Jack asks the question there’s only one possible response that Andrew can give.

“Yes.”

These books are both beautiful and ugly. Pleasure and pain. Love and hate. The very first page made me laugh but a few more pages in and I was already edging towards sad.  For a story that is about such pure love these books are filled with violence and fear and hatred. At times I felt there was too much pain. But while the abuse Jack and Andrew suffer is extreme the most distressing part is it can still actually happen in real life. Less and less likely all the time perhaps but you do still hear about it happening. Starving your kids, beating your kids, not caring if they die if living means they’re gay. The “treatment camp” Jack is sent to made me feel sick. You can see just from reading the blurbs that Jack and Andrew are separated in the second book. By the time they find their way back to each other I swear I felt I was drowning in angst. And while suicide is never ever the answer I completely understand why one of the characters feels he has no other option. Of course there is always better options, everybody knows that, but to be so totally alone after having loved someone that much and lost them. Even knowing that they would eventually get their happy ending I was still so afraid and upset because I was that emotionally invested in this story.

In some ways much of the last book was superfluous. They’ve found each other again, they’re going to live happily ever after, that’s a given. Do we require what is essentially a 100 page epilogue of what happens next? Jesus, yes. I just spent hours reading through over 600 pages of angst. Brilliant angst but, yeah, I need the happy parts now. I need to read about their normal everyday lives and know I just experienced all that suffering with them for a reason. That promised big fat southern gay wedding is just what my stress levels ordered.

These books have a huge cast of secondary characters who brought so much to this story. The parents, with their varying degrees of evil. Jack’s endless brothers and sisters. The football coach, the social worker, the foster parents, friends and the other kids who require “a cure for gay”. My two favorite characters are Jack’s mother and Jack’s brother Billy. I thought Jack’s mother was going to be just another doormat wife who stood by while her asshole husband abused her children. And she is at first. I really appreciated the fact that the author chose to develop her character into something more than another boring stereotype. And while she may have been raised to follow blindly, she’s strong enough to begin asking questions when she needs to protect her children. A little late, obviously, but that just makes her so much more real.

Billy may just be one of my favorite secondary characters ever. When we first meet Billy he’s only seven years old. Jack’s youngest brother who likes pretty, soft things and just wants to be a princess. Billy doesn’t understand why he can’t wear makeup and dresses or why the other boys want girlfriends and not boyfriends. His innocence makes him brave and at the same time makes him Jack’s greatest weakness. He’ll do anything to protect Billy from his father.

Andrew hated having to burst this boy’s bubble. He wanted to tell Billy that he could buy the dress and that he’d gladly take him trick-or-treating. But he lived in the real world where little boys who dressed up as girls were taught lessons that dealt with fists and belts.

I know I’m praising these books pretty hard and I know Sara York is a popular author. In case you think I’m just fan-girling, I thought I’d share that I’ve never actually read any of this author’s work before. It was the covers and the titles that first drew my attention to these books. The covers are gorgeous.

These books aren’t perfect. There were a few editing issues I noticed and I know some readers complained about small thing such as Jack and Andrew passing notes like teenage girls. But you know what, if a story affects me to this extent it doesn’t deserve to be analyzed to death. I don’t care if their should have been they’re or if brought should have been bought. Do. Not. Give. A. Shit. It deserves a full 5 stars as far as I’m concerned, though I will admit I don’t know if I’ll ever be brave enough to read the whole three books from start to finish again.

The audio book of Pray the Gay Away is due out very soon through Amazon and I give all you guys and girls fair warning- do not attempt this book while wearing mascara.

“There are some paths that are easy and some that are hard…If ever two people loved each other, it would be Jack and Andrew”

 

 

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Sara York is graciously offering a copy of her soon to be released Audio Book of  “Pray the Gay Away” !!

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