The Time of the Singing
This book is really hard for me to rate. The stars are mostly given for two reasons.1.)Israfel's struggle to understand and come to terms with himself and his role as a priest was well done. I believed in his anguish and confusion. I could envision him praying desperately for guidence, a sign, some answers, something.
2.) The book is written in third person present tense and that, like Israfel's struggle, was done well. It was interesting to read a whole book in that tense. At no point did I find it annoying or jarring and that is a testament to the author's skill.
Now I come to the reason why this was a difficult read for me. I don't mind May/December romances at all but something about the relationship between Israfel and his 17 year old love interest, Nate, really struck me the wrong way. There was a certain lack of maturity in Nate that kept me from seeing him and Israfel as equals.
I've read one other (that I can remember) M/M romance that featured a priest. David and Conner is a much lighter book but it did one thing right that The Time of the Singing did not do; it established a friendship between the main characters before there was a sexual relationship. This, to me, is so important when dealing with something like a priest falling in love with anyone, especially a Catholic priest finding love with another man.
For a Catholic priest to come to terms with being homosexual and leaving the church to be with the man he loves has to be an extremely difficult decision. I would think that there should be something more than lust that tempts a man to stray from that kind of devotion to the church. I would think that would be even more true of a relationship that was to be had with a teenager. However, in this book, Israfel and Nate have only lust in the beginning and I was not convinced that Israfel would spend 15 or so years denying himself and then everything would break down simply for lust. It seemed out of character in alot of ways. I needed there to be a deeper connection.
Also, In David and Conner the priest's love interest is aware that he's asking something very difficult of the man who has devoted most of his life to the church. It's not something to be taken lightly. In The Time of the Singing Nate doesn't seem to comprehend Israfel's struggle. He didn't seem to care or know how conflicted Israfel was. This made Nate seem very immature to me.
It was stated a couple of times that Nate was mature beyond his years but I just didn't see it. I don't feel like Nate understood the gravity of Israfel's situation and it just drove home the fact that he was only a teenager.
In the end I was uncomfortable with the relationship between Nate and Israfel. As I said before, they just weren't equals in terms of maturity and I couldn't believe that they were meant for each other at that point in their lives. The author made a valiant attempt to tackle a difficult subject but in the end I don't believe she was successful.
