A Natural
A Novel

This novel is all about football. Wait, my bookish friends, come back! It also examines weighty themes: identity, masculinity, the journey from adolescence into adulthood. Most importantly, it explores what can happen when the worlds of sport and sexuality collide. Tom Pearman is a 19-year-old footba......more

The thing that should not be underestimated as you read through my thoughts on A Natural is just how much I hate sports – which probably raises the question of why I decided a book about football/soccer to begin with, to which I can answer: if I had understood the extent to which this book is about......more

(This review contains references to a plot point which some may consider a spoiler. However, it's so central to the book that there'd have been no point in me writing any kind of review without mentioning it. You have been warned.) Tom is a talented young footballer who has always seemed destined for......more

This story has been dubbed a slow burner, of emotional poignancy, about the ultimate taboo of a gay footballer. But the world, which is supposed to be filled with raw emotion, sportsmanship, and tormented characters is actually a world filled with the dull, the paranoid, and the melodramatic. I want......more

Let's get something out of the way. I don't always like the rules. I think all of us can agree that sometimes the rules are stupid. I don't always play by the rules, but sometimes I do. And sometimes I just dance around the issue discussing the rules instead of getting to the point... I was raised i......more