Book Review: Boston Boys Club by Johnny Diaz

Move over Candace Bushnell, Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte, and Miranda; Tommy, Mikey, Rico, and Kyle are on the scene. Summer reading season is almost here and I can't think of a better pre-season recommendation than Boston Boys Club. Chick lit had to make way for chica lit, and I'm glad to say the the ground for chico lit is being broken by Johnny Diaz and his own tale of the city, filled with hot boy on boy sex, friendship, romance, trying to make sense of who you are, and what you really want against a well-crafted backdrop of Beantown.

Flanked by gorgeous brick row houses in the heart of Boston’s South End, the Club Café is a bar where everybody knows your name — and who you slept with last. Every night men like Tommy Perez, Rico DiMio, and Kyle Andrews take their place among the glistening crowd sporting chest-defining shirts and lots of smooth, tanned skin, sizing up the regulars and the new blood while TV monitors blare Beyoncé and Missy Elliott.

For Tommy, Thursdays at the Club Café in the company of his wingman Rico and a Skinny Black Bitch (vodka and Diet Coke) are unmissable. Recently relocated from Miami to Boston to take a reporting job at The Boston Daily, Tommy is finding it hard to break away from his tight-knit Cuban family, but his homesickness goes into rapid remission when he meets Mikey, a blue-eyed, boyish guidance counselor from Cape Cod. Smart, funny, and wicked cute, Mikey is perfect boyfriend material… until his drinking leads Tommy to suspect that he’s got some issues of his own. Rico — a tough-talking, Italian-American accountant with a gamma ray smile and mournful green eyes that hint at a past he’ll admit to no one — is sure Mikey is bad news, but to Rico any relationship that lasts longer than three hours sounds like bad news. Then there’s Kyle, the lean, preening model and former reality show star who makes a red-carpet entrance into the CC every Thursday as if a swarm of cameras still follows his every move, but whose real life is about to take a dramatic turn he never anticipated.

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Article Author: Lisa Alvarado

Lisa Alvarado is a poet, novelist, and performance artist. She is the author of The Housekeeper's Diary, Reclamo, and Sister Chicas. In 2007, Sister Chicas was the 2nd place winner of the Mariposa/International Latino Book Award for Best 1st Novel in English. …

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  • Boston Boys Club Boston Boys Club

    Flanked by gorgeous brick row houses in the heart of Boston's South End, the Club Café is a bar where everybody knows your name--and who you slept with last. Every night men like Tommy Perez, Rico ...

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Article comments

  • 1 - Natalie Bennett

    Mar 31, 2007 at 7:43 pm

    This article has been selected for syndication to Advance.net, which is affiliated with newspapers around the United States. Nice work!

  • 2 - Regis Schilken

    Apr 01, 2007 at 9:49 pm

    I enjoyed your review. Very informative. I like your style.

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