Nude Men

I have mixed feelings about this book. Well written, interesting characters - at first, that is. Later, I got thoroughly annoyed with most of them. Why? I hate books and movies where the principal character just floats through life, having things happen to him, doing stupid things just because he goes along with everything, never takes any rational initiative, etc. I cannot enjoy books when you cannot ever see WHY a person acts as he does. Nude Men certainly falls into this category.
So: this one was not for me. Finished it yesterday and you can still see the irritation in this review - phew!
I know it is just me, my husband loves this kind of book/movie.

Rarely has a first novel generated so much excitement, here and abroad, as Amanda Filipacchi's utterly beguiling Nude Men. The story is told by Jeremy Acidophilus, "a man without many pleasures in life, a man whose few pleasures are small, but a man whose small pleasures are very important to him." Jeremy is twenty-nine, and his life is going nowhere. Until he meets a beautiful woman in a coffee shop. Lady Henrietta (she takes her name from Oscar Wilde's Lord Henry) paints nude men, some for art's sake, some for the pages of Playgirl. She wants Jeremy to pose for her and, naturally, he thinks he is falling in love with her. But it is Henrietta's precocious, voluptuous eleven-year-old daughter who seduces Jeremy - in a scene of startling show more imagination and uncanny charm. In this mesmerizing, uniquely witty novel, Filipacchi explores sexual mores with uninhibited freshness and originality, shaking our allegiance to conventional moral codes. Half French, half American, she has created a story that seems both guileless and sophisticated, and the pleasure one takes in it is accompanied by a touch of guilt. Despite that, or because of it, the pleasure is glorious. show less