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Willing
by Scott Spencer
| List Price: |
$24.95 |
| Price: |
$17.12 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. |
| You Save: |
$7.83 (31%) |
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Hardcover
Publisher: Ecco
Hailed as "the contemporary American master of the love story" (Publishers Weekly), bestselling author Scott Spencer takes us on a psychologically intense—and brilliantly funny—journey inside the world of international sex tourism. Avery Jankowsky is a thirty-seven-year-old Manhattan writer scraping by on freelance assignments. Despite his lack of ambition, and very much to his own surprise, he has won the affections of Deirdre, a Columbia grad student many years his junior. But when Deirdre tells him that she has been having an affair, Avery's world is shattered. Beside himself with jealousy and grief, Avery heads across town to meet his uncle Ezra for their monthly lunch date. Ezra senses his nephew's fragile emotional state and makes a startling proposition: Avery should use his tickets to an all-expenses-paid international sex tour. Sensing a white-hot book idea (and a chance to get back at Deirdre), Avery agrees to go as an undercover journalist. As the tour bounces from one Nordic country to another, Avery and his fellow travelers—most of them wealthy and accomplished—descend ever deeper into a blinding world that is equal parts hilarity and nightmare, until Avery suddenly finds himself face-to-face with the one person he never expected to see. A two-time National Book Award finalist, Spencer has already given us some of the most remarkable tales of love and passion in contemporary American fiction. Willing is at once a lighter and a darker performance, a startling tour de force that explores the limits of male restraint, the intoxications of privilege, the maddening dangers of freedom, and the knockdown, drag-out fight between our instincts and our better natures.
| Customer Reviews: |
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| Yes Yes Yes |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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Yes, a wild ride, yes funny, yes original, yes a whip-smart look at men vs men and men vs women and humankind vs peace on earth, and yes yes for what is my favorite book of the year. Here is a book that picks you up on the very first page, carries you along, and then delivers you to a strange new world. A lot of heavy lifting and not a drop of sweat. Bravo.
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| Stunning |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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A stunning novel from a master. I'm going to make my own book club and this is going to be the first book we discuss. There's so much going on in such a slim package --great, great writing, laughter, suspense, and an ending that left me reeling.
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| Willing Reader |
| Customer Rating: 4 out of 5 |
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It's original, well written and funny.
The guy goes on a sex tour vacay? His mother shows up!
You have to read this to believe it.
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| **SPOILER REVIEW** |
| Customer Rating: 4 out of 5 |
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***SPOILER REVIEW*** Read no further if you don't want to know the ending...
I just finished this book, and was amazed at how it turned out. I read the other reviews to see if I was on the right track with my interpretation, but no one seems to agree with me. At first I was quite disappointed and confused; the story seemed sloppy, with too many plot holes. Scott Spencer is much better than that! I finally figured out that Avery was seriously injured when he was struck by that car, and the rest of the book represents his dreams while in a coma. Everything is so far-fetched (the huge book deal; the tour itself and the fact that it's a gift, etc.), and it just keeps getting more illogical and dream-like as it goes along (Castle's missing reflection, for example. Plus the ever-increasing, unexplained gaps from one scene to the next, and the frequent use of "the next thing I remember"). At the very end when his mom closes his eyes and reassures him that he'll be home soon - I think that's when he dies. What a very original and creative book (although sad); well worth your time!
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| SNORE |
| Customer Rating: 1 out of 5 |
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The guy can write, and the premise is interesting enough, but don't waste your time. The main characters MOTHER plays a major role in a book about sexual tourism. Huh? The author should have just gone to a few extra therapy sessions and spared us this disappointment.
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