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Jun. 4th, 2011 07:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cblj_backupTwo book reviews in a single day! I'm back down to only one book at a time now, thank god.
So, last weekend when I was out in the wilderness avoiding bears, we had a tornado warning on Sunday night. The campground -- which was composed of cabins and bath-houses on the edge and a mess hall and lodge in the middle -- has specific rules about extreme weather: campers have to remain in their cabins until the all clear, and meals are done in shifts by campsite.
Since I'd already finished reading my last book, I darted into the lodge on my way to the cabin, because I'd seen a few shelves of books there. I grabbed the first thing I saw that looked readable, which turned out to be a book entitled BRUCE LARKIN AIR FORCE CADET.
You can probably imagine what it's about. There's this guy, Bruce Larkin...
It wasn't actually as abjectly awful as I expected. It's Air Force propaganda, in the style of an adventure book -- it actually reminded me of Harry Potter more than once. But it's so endearingly earnest about sharing with the young men of 1962 all the trials and triumphs of an Air Force cadet's first year at the Academy, and the characters are surprisingly engaging -- Jack Pearl apparently wrote a lot of pulp fiction and he's not a bad writer.
There's Bruce, of course, the star quarterback of his high school team who Always Does What Is Right, and Pee Wee who Always Gets Into Trouble For Mischief, and the Cadet Commander who bullies them both. There's also Paul and Sam, who are roommates and have to negotiate around the fact that Sam is inconveniently African-American. Integration was clearly an issue for the Academy...
And then there's Larry Dexter, Paul'shatefuck roommate, who has a whole novel in him if Pearl didn't have to write A Book About The Air Force Academy. Dexter desperately doesn't want to be there, but his father made him go because he's a general in the Air Force, and when he decides he's going to fail out, his father tells him he'll have him drafted into the Army as soon as he does. I mean, I'm all for people going into the military if they want to, but I don't think they should have to just because their dads are fucked up. I was really pulling for Dexter to go AWOL and embark on an exciting life of fugitive crime.
Instead he goes home because his father nearly dies of some random disease, and when he comes back he decides he's going to spend four years at the Air Force Academy as a favour to his old man. I just. Oh Dexter. Why did you knuckle under?
He and Bruce probably had pretty sweet reunion-rehabilitation sex, though. (There's a lot of manly bonding and private grins throughout the book. I'm pretty sure they were fucking.)
Anyway, that is my report on BRUCE LARKIN AIR FORCE CADET. The sad thing is, it was just interesting enough for me to want to read the sequel, now that I know there is one...
So, last weekend when I was out in the wilderness avoiding bears, we had a tornado warning on Sunday night. The campground -- which was composed of cabins and bath-houses on the edge and a mess hall and lodge in the middle -- has specific rules about extreme weather: campers have to remain in their cabins until the all clear, and meals are done in shifts by campsite.
Since I'd already finished reading my last book, I darted into the lodge on my way to the cabin, because I'd seen a few shelves of books there. I grabbed the first thing I saw that looked readable, which turned out to be a book entitled BRUCE LARKIN AIR FORCE CADET.
You can probably imagine what it's about. There's this guy, Bruce Larkin...
It wasn't actually as abjectly awful as I expected. It's Air Force propaganda, in the style of an adventure book -- it actually reminded me of Harry Potter more than once. But it's so endearingly earnest about sharing with the young men of 1962 all the trials and triumphs of an Air Force cadet's first year at the Academy, and the characters are surprisingly engaging -- Jack Pearl apparently wrote a lot of pulp fiction and he's not a bad writer.
There's Bruce, of course, the star quarterback of his high school team who Always Does What Is Right, and Pee Wee who Always Gets Into Trouble For Mischief, and the Cadet Commander who bullies them both. There's also Paul and Sam, who are roommates and have to negotiate around the fact that Sam is inconveniently African-American. Integration was clearly an issue for the Academy...
And then there's Larry Dexter, Paul's
Instead he goes home because his father nearly dies of some random disease, and when he comes back he decides he's going to spend four years at the Air Force Academy as a favour to his old man. I just. Oh Dexter. Why did you knuckle under?
He and Bruce probably had pretty sweet reunion-rehabilitation sex, though. (There's a lot of manly bonding and private grins throughout the book. I'm pretty sure they were fucking.)
Anyway, that is my report on BRUCE LARKIN AIR FORCE CADET. The sad thing is, it was just interesting enough for me to want to read the sequel, now that I know there is one...
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Date: 2011-06-05 12:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-05 01:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-05 12:29 pm (UTC)