Product Description
Once safely out of Nebraska, Seth McKenna does everything he can to erase his oppressive hometown and abusive childhood, leaving his sister Cassie behind to fend for herself. Seth is making a new life for himself as an artist in New York when he falls hard for an alluring older man who is astonished to find in Seth the second love of his life. The couple’s relationship is complicated by Cassie’s unexpected arrival with significant secrets and plans of her own. Now S… More >>
Tags: abusive childhood, hometown, Love, mckenna, Means, nebraska, older man, People, relationship, seth, unexpected arrival
#1 by Betty Burks on February 15, 2010 - 7:55 am
“Who Are These People,” the song, expresses it well. They come from all walks of life, usually the creative adults who weren’t allowed to be creative as children. It used to be taboo to speak of what Christians consider a form of devilish perversion. I once knew a college chaplain who was such a person, and nothing was done or said about his persuasion. Who knows, Jesus could have been one, as he never did marry, no matter what the authors of ‘The DaVinci Code’ wanted us to believe. They wer the most frustrated of young adults in the far and near past. They’re everywhere and usually you can recognize them by the way they talk and act and their choice of companions.
As the movie, “Breakback Mountain,” showed even rough cowboy types can be different from the norm as we have been led to believe they should be all the macho ‘Marlboro Man,’ It is hard for old-fashioned adults to understand why they are determined to act as they do in public. Behind doors is another matter altogether.
There are mahy kinds of love, and they all mean different things to different people. What we may consider unnatural in the past seems to be the norm today amazingly. Seth, 23-yr-old, has a lot of past incidents he runs from as he leaves Nebraska for the artistic life in New York, where he and JIm, almost twenty years older, become a couple. Seth continues to conceal his painful family life as he crates his own reincarnation. His evasion and secrets threaten to destroy his new life. But the past always tends to surface when least expected; we all have skeltons in the closet and must strive not to share them even with those we consider our friends.
Friendships are not forever and, if your family secrets are too bad, a friend may turn his back on you and start untrue tales as retaliation. To seek retribution, you could sue for defamation of character but you’d have to prove that what you told were lies. There will always be someone from your past to delight in bringing you down to his level. The devil has many handmaidens; Seth’s untruthfulness can be his downfall. What, after all, is love? Most especially, what does love mean to “you people” and will you ever overcome the bitterness in your hearts over the past. I think not.
Rating: 3 / 5
#2 by John K on February 15, 2010 - 8:16 am
I really did enjoy the writer’s style. It’s too bad it was wasted on such a bad story. The book started out okay, but spiraled into garbage pretty quickly. After the characters return to Drinkwater hte book pretty much became unreadable to me. It was trite, and pretty much done before.
Rating: 2 / 5
#3 by Harriet Klausner on February 15, 2010 - 8:53 am
Twenty-three years old Cornhusker Seth McKenna fled Nebraska for New York to allegedly make it as an artist, but more so to escape the memory of his stepfather raping him and his deeply religious fundamentalist mother did nothing to protect him or his sis. Seth meets forty-two years old wealthy executive Jim Glaser, who mourns the loss of his long time significant other Zak.
Both silently feel the age gap is too great though they are attracted to one another. Besides Seth, who paints a Norman Rockwell childhood to describe his Midwestern past to his new friend, deep in his psyche he does not feel worthy of a nice man like Jim. On the other hand Jim struggles too because he feels he is betraying his first love Zak. As the duo becomes acquainted, Seth’s sister Cassie arrives in Manhattan having run away. She is stunned to learn her brother is gay and even more shocked that the man he loves is old enough to be her father. Still she is accepting and her sibling and his lover agree to raise her child while she seeks a new life overseas. However, Seth’s web of deceit unravels hurting Jim to the core as he wonders if he can trust this stranger.
Though the climatic road to redemption seems excessively affected, this is a terrific modern day character driven romance starring two likable protagonists carrying excessive baggage. If Jim was June, no reader would think twice about WHAT LOVE MEANS TO YOU PEOPLE. That is the underlying beauty of this terrific tale that it does not matter that the relationship is between two homosexual males as Cassie quickly understands; it is the love that matters. Seth’s past and Jim’s grief add to a wonderful insightful contemporary drama.
Harriet Klausner
Rating: 4 / 5
#4 by E. Cousins on February 15, 2010 - 9:22 am
“What Love Means to You People” is a is a compelling story of the lengths people will go to in order to love and be loved. Once I began reading it, I found it almost impossible to put down.
Rating: 5 / 5
#5 by DonMac on February 15, 2010 - 9:38 am
Yikes. I gave this two stars because I felt badly that I could not make it past page 108 before I just couldn’t take it anymore. A combination of a middle-aged gay man’s sex fantasy and Harlequin Romance, it can really try the patience of the reader. In fact, I am a little saddened at the increasing mumber of gay novels that might have been written by Jackie Collin’s little sister. Not to offend anyone – but there is and can be so much better stuff out there.
Rating: 2 / 5