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ClareR (5784 KP) rated Hold Back the Night in Books

Jul 7, 2024

Hold Back the Night

Jessica Moor | 2024 | Contemporary, Fiction & Poetry, LGBTQ+

10.0

(1 Ratings)

Book Rating

I’m still reeling from this book, and I read it about a month ago.

Hold Back the Night is set in 3 timelines:
1959, Annie and Ruth are training to be psychiatric nurses in an institution that believes they’re at the forefront of treatment. They learn to speed-shave and dress male patients, hold down women receiving ECT, and take part in conversion therapy for some male patients. “Conversion therapy” sounds pretty harmless, doesn’t it? In reality it wasn’t.

1983, Annie is widowed and bringing up her daughter, Rosie, alone. She meets a young man who is ill, and his friend. She learns that he has been evicted because he has HIV. Annie offers them a home and nursing care. Soon her home becomes a haven for infected, homeless, shunned boys. I think in the back of her mind, she knows she’s trying to make amends for her part in the conversion therapies she took part in.

Which brings us to the third timeline in 2020, and Covid.
There are some parallels to be drawn (uncertainty, fear), but this timeline wraps everything up together, and Annie faces up to her part in 1959.

I loved this book, and the way the timelines wove together really helped me to understand Annie and her reasons for doing just what she did - rightly or wrongly.

Definitely one of my books of the year.

Kudos

Erika (17789 KP) rated Rocketman (2019) in Movies

Jun 8, 2019

Rocketman (2019)

2019 | Biography, Drama

8.0

(59 Ratings)

Movie Rating Watch

I love Elton, and was raised with 'Madman Across the Water'.
Of course, this film will be endlessly with Bohemian Rhapsody, but it was inevitable, since they were released within a year of each other.
I thought Taron did well as Elton, as did the other cast. The film didn't pull punches, and showed the excessive drug/alcohol use. It was probably biased definitely towards Elton, since he was heavily involved.
I liked that the film was slightly surreal, though the trope of revealing all in a therapy setting has been overdone. It did pack an emotional punch, and it didn't feel like I'd been sitting there for over two hours.