Like a Love Story
Written by Abdi Nazemian
Narrated by Lauren Ambrose, Vikas Adam and Michael Crouch
4.5/5
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About this audiobook
2020 Audie Awards® Finalist - Young Adult
Stonewall Honor Book * A Time Magazine Best YA Book of All Time
""A book for warriors, divas, artists, queens, individuals, activists, trend setters, and anyone searching for the courage to be themselves.”—Mackenzi Lee, New York Times bestselling author of The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue
It’s 1989 in New York City, and for three teens, the world is changing.
Reza is an Iranian boy who has just moved to the city with his mother to live with his stepfather and stepbrother. He’s terrified that someone will guess the truth he can barely acknowledge about himself. Reza knows he’s gay, but all he knows of gay life are the media’s images of men dying of AIDS.
Judy is an aspiring fashion designer who worships her uncle Stephen, a gay man with AIDS who devotes his time to activism as a member of ACT UP. Judy has never imagined finding romance...until she falls for Reza and they start dating.
Art is Judy’s best friend, their school’s only out and proud teen. He’ll never be who his conservative parents want him to be, so he rebels by documenting the AIDS crisis through his photographs.
As Reza and Art grow closer, Reza struggles to find a way out of his deception that won’t break Judy’s heart—and destroy the most meaningful friendship he’s ever known.
This is a bighearted, sprawling epic about friendship and love and the revolutionary act of living life to the fullest in the face of impossible odds.
Abdi Nazemian
Abdi Nazemian is the author of Like a Love Story, a Stonewall Honor Book, Only This Beautiful Moment, The Chandler Legacies, and The Authentics. His novel The Walk-In Closet won the Lambda Literary Award for LGBT Debut Fiction. His screenwriting credits include the films The Artist’s Wife, The Quiet, and Menendez: Blood Brothers and the television series Ordinary Joe and The Village. He has been an executive producer and associate producer on numerous films, including Call Me by Your Name, Little Woods, and The House of Tomorrow. He lives in Los Angeles with his husband, their two children, and their dog, Disco. Find him online at abdinazemian.com.
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Reviews for Like a Love Story
255 ratings11 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A teen LGBTQ love triangle, but more importantly an honest account of the fear and stigma prevalent in the early days of the AIDS epidemic in America. Also a look inside the Act Up movement who stood against the fear and demanded access to life-saving treatments. Timely for 2022, as Monkey Pox was circulating in the community and was meeting with similar fears and lack of resources. I loved Uncle Stephen’s study cards!
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This is my favorite book ever. it's such a compelling book and I 100% feel like the author understands what it's like to be gay and they really did their research about the AIDS pandemic. I really. If you're debating reading this book do it. Don't even hesitate it's just so good.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This story hit me like a wall of bricks. Every twinge of fear, love, anger, and happiness hit me in a spot I didn’t know I could still feel. It made me remember why you can’t repress yourself forever, and why it only causes your heart to ache. These characters will be in my heart for a long time, and I’m excited to look back at them like old friends.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This was a wonderful story of overcoming tragedy and sadness with friendship and love.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I am crying this is so important, i need everyone to read it
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The author tried to cover too much ground and drowned the main story. By the second half of the book, the pacing is more plodding as the author seems bent on covering as much (AIDS and gay cultural) history as possible and is using the main story of the characters as the vehicle to do it.
Obviously a lot of work went into this — but somewhere in all that effort, the core story of Art, Judy and Riza took a backseat. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/54.5 que lindo encontrarse con esos libros que no esperabas leer en tu vida y que te terminen gustando tanto
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I give this 4.5 stars. This is a M/M YA romance set in NYC in the 80s during the AIDs crisis. It's also a coming of age and coming out story of an Iranian boy. There were so many layers to this book and I really enjoyed it. The only thing that kept me from giving this 5 stars was that I didn't like how it felt like Art was nagging Razi to do something that he wasn't quite ready to do.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5diverse teen fiction--closeted Iranian-American 17-y.o. boy meets 'out' boy and his teen girl friend (who gets teased for being fat) and her AIDS-dying uncle in 1989-90 NYC
sweet, bitter, and full of heart. I am definitely going to cry before this book ends.
I did cry, but not where I thought I would. I especially loved Uncle Stephen's study cards which explained why he thought Madonna was so bad-ass (and why you should too), and other bits of wisdom and guidance he wanted to pass on to Art and Judy, including a hilarious NOT-TO-BE-MISSED talk on proper condom storage (keep them in a cool place, and if you must carry one in your wallet, replace them regularly after each outing, even if you don't get a chance to use any). - Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5I really, really wanted to like this one, but I just couldn't get interested in the characters or the story. *shrug*
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Like A Love Story by Abdi Nazemian takes a raw and sometimes difficult look at the heart of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s. Reza’s mother has just remarried and moved them from Toronto (and Iran before that) to New York City. Besides navigating the new school, jerky stepbrother, and other changes, Reza also thinks he may be gay. He meets best friends, Judy and Art, (who narrate different chapters of the book) and through relationships with them becomes active in AIDS protests and works to find himself. Nazemian captures teenage voices well and doesn’t shy away from honest portrayals of the early victims of AIDS and their struggles. At times some characters veer into caricature territory, and others feel very forced and plot-driven, but overall still an enjoyable read that depicts important pieces of our history that we don’t often see.