I have listened to several audio books performed by Joel Leslie and loved them all but – I have never laughed as hard and as much as I did when listening to Femme. I’ve never read anything written by Marshall Thornton before but I absolutely loved Femme. I’ve actually had this audio book in my library for nearly a year and I’m so sorry that I waited so long to listen to it.
This is one of those rare – for me – audio books where I’m not sure if I would have liked the printed book as much as I did the audio. The story is fairly campy – it is a comedy after all – and I definitely think that Joel’s performance of the book added something very special to the story.
Lionel is a stereotypical flamboyant gay man who works as server in a gay bar called The Bird. Dog (Doug) is just the opposite, presenting as a very manly man who no one would think is gay. Dog and the other members of his gay softball team visit Bird frequently. I saw where a few reviewers took exception to these stereotypes but, for crying out loud, this is FICTION and a romantic COMEDY.
I actually listened to this book with my, very straight, husband and he loved it as much as I did. The story has all of the conflicts found in a romance – Dog does something unforgiveable to Lionel and Lionel forgives him – but the humorous way the story is written, and then performed brilliantly by Joel, is just delicious.
The next book in this series, Masc, has just been released and I’m hoping and praying that an audio of it will be available and performed by Joel Leslie.