DNF - Was looking forward to this as I loved the concept of a gay Dirty Dancing...unfortunately, it's exactly like Dirty Dancing, no new content of any significance, it felt a bit like the author was cheating and just changing the sex and rewriting the film.

This was a DNF for me and I could not make it past the 3rd chapter. The writing just didn't engage me enough to keep me wanting to read on after that.

A sexy little story by an author I had not read before, and I enjoyed. I loved the romance in the story and the character growth - will try more from thks author in the future

I'm torn because I absolutely love the movie Dirty Dancing, and I thought the author adapted the book well, if you've watched the movie even once or a thousand times like I have, you'll definitely see the similarities between the movie and this book, in fact, some scenes are actually portrayed almost verbatim to the movie scenes.

While you will definitely know this is an adaptation of the movie, for me the execution didn't quite work. The story felt, well, cheesy. If you've seen the movie you'll know the characters backstories, but the author didn't develop the characters. The story is told completely from Junior's (Baby) point of view. I think the author missed out on not letting us hear from Carlo (Johnny). I was missing the chemistry between the characters. It all felt sort of superficial.

One of my biggest pet peeves about an author's writing style is that it is "telly" and not "showy". Bring me in and let me experience it for myself, let me see what's happening, don't tell me what's happening. This story is very "telly", and I didn't really connect with the characters.

The story is set in 1978, and at times the author would, well, just read down.


•••••
"He knew he’d be masturbating alone a lot that summer. He was surrounded by good looking men in short pants, bathing suits, and athletic gear. And none of them seemed to be gay. Even the word gay in reference to homosexuals was still only catching on in 1978 and most people in the mainstream were not comfortable using it unless they were whispering."

"He’d masturbated to magazine photos of men sucking dicks, but that was the only visual he’d ever seen. In 1978, there were no videos or DVDs to watch male porn. There was no Internet. If you wanted to watch any kind of porn back then, you either went to an independent porn theater or an adult bookstore where they had 25-cent peep shows."
••••

You're not supposed to hear from the character about what is happens in the future. The characters in a book, unless it's an autobiography/memoir you're reading, aren't supposed to know what the future holds. These types of statements just threw the story off even further, especially since there is a section in the front of the book from the author telling us similar things already.

I'm sure some will enjoy the story and maybe even love the characters and while I don't think it was a horrible read, it just wasn't for me.

*copy provided to me by the author/publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*

Thank you Netgalley for an ARC copy.

I was looking forward to reading this story, I am a huge fan of the movie Dirty Dancing, I can't count the times I have watched it. I also enjoy reading a great romance or an enjoyable m/m story. This book just did not do it for me, I did not feel any real chemistry or connection with the M/C's - for me it felt a bit like a forced word for word re-telling of the movie just switching the faces. Even the key lines were the same.

You are either going to enjoy Dancing Dirty because it's based on the movie "Dirty Dancing" or you're going to dislike Dancing Dirty ... because it's based on the movie "Dirty Dancing."

This book is basically a retelling of the 1987 movie, which was set in 1963 in the Catskills. Field has updated the story to 1978 and set the story in a resort community in Pennsylvania. Baby is Junior and Johnny Castle is Carlo and yup, "Nobody puts Junior in the corner." The dance that Junior and Carlo perform is at a Leather Party complete with Junior in a black leather vest, ass-less chaps and leather boots with 4" heels. Oooh, baby.

Dancing Dirty is very faithful to the events of the movie (with the addition of Elmer, an imaginary dog), but it also works fairly well as a M/M romance. In an echo of Baby's speech to her father, Junior tells his father:

"If you love me, you'll understand that I didn't choose to be who I am and I didn't do it to hurt you. I love you, Dad, and I can apologize for what I did with Stella and the money. But I can't apologize for who I am."

While Junior and Carlo have some very sexy scenes (okay, quite a few), we don't get Carlo's POV and I didn't feel that zing of chemistry between the two. Max Kellerman's grandson Neil from the movie has been recast as Valerie and I did not like the way the author portrayed Valerie - described as a large girl, with puffy hands, big feet, frizzy hair, and obnoxious manners. Finally occasionally the author breaks the fourth wall by directly addressing the reader (mostly to explain how things were like in 1978) and I found this disconcerting.

I liked some of the elements of Dancing DirtyDancing Dirty and give it 3.25 stars . I think this is a story where "you results may definitely vary!"

I received an ARC from NetGalley of this book. I thought the story line looked cute because it follows the movie Dirty Dancing which I have seen a million times. It did, almost exactly for the most part except that the main characters are gay and the little sister has an imaginary dog (which is kind of funny actually and made the story better). However, the writing was really dry and basic. I did not like the author's writing style at all. I also realized that he has written a gay book version of several different movies which I probably will not read after reading this one. The characters were pretty one-dimensional and boring. I did not really feel it between Junior and Carlo. The best part of the story was the invisible dog friend of Junior's sister who nobody could see but was apparently real. The only reason I finished the book was because it was short and I wanted to see if Carlo actually said, "Nobody put Junior in a corner," which he did. This author will probably never be a favorite of mine.

Thank you to NetGalley and Riverdale Avenue Books for the review copy

I can only assume that i did not appreciate this much because I have not seen Dirty Dancing.
I found the writing did not flow well and the references to “how things were back in the 70’s “ a bit clunky and jarring. Even allowing for the differences between the UK and USA this did not really have a sense of the 1970’s about it.Some of the details seemed wrong- were many gay men still using Vaseline as late as this?

Carlos was potentially a very interesting character and more backstory would have helped. Junior did not ring true-would a boy from this social background have been like this? The emotional relationship worked although I was not convinced by the sex. Junior’s family and the other background characters were well sketched and had reality although a 16yo with an imaginary dog might be stretching it.

The ending was too rushed and I was left wondering how the relationship would fare when Junior went to Yale and Carlos on to his next job.

I won't be reading or reviewing this as I don't accept reviews on the condition I don't leave a negative review.