About "In One Person"

I gave "In One Person" by John Irving 2 stars, if for no other reason than I deserve 2 stars for muddling through it.  John Irving wrote "The World According to Garp" and "The Hotel New Hampshire" which were both made into movies 20+ years ago.  I read and enjoyed both books, so when this book came out, I thought I'd give it a go.  I put it on hold at the library, and when it became available, it was a 14 day loan.  Yikes!  I was only 125 pages into it when I had to return it, and it had only gotten good at about page 100.  So I put it back on hold.  It became available this past week--along with another 14 day loan book I had on hold (it always happens that way), so I've been reading diligently to finish this.  And I felt compelled to finish it after having it on hold twice!

I didn't like this book nearly as well as I liked the other stuff I've read by him, but what I really liked about this book is that it had several quirky characters (as most John Irving books do).  Unfortunately, the main character wasn't too quirky (aside from his being bisexual), and parts of this book really dragged on.

This is the life story of that bi-sexual man and the people in his life.  Some of them heterosexual; some of them not.  This is really the story our country's acceptance of gays and their progress over the past 70 years.  The most moving part of the book was the coverage of the aids epidemic in the 1980's.  Still the ending was anti-climatic, and I am sort of glad to have this book done.  Maybe I should have given it only 1 star???