Browse by Genre ... Bestsellers Book lists Best Of 2020. • Science Fiction & Fantasy Mystery & Thriller Romance. FINAL REVIEW: An intimate look at small-town America’s reaction to the AIDS epidemic during the mid-1980s. I knew going into this one that it'd be a heartbreaking read - the blurb tells us that Brian is moving back from NYC to his hometown in Appalachian Ohio to die. I am only. Another elegiac novel about the height of the AIDS epidemic in America, this one set in a small Ohioan town, where Brian, an artsy white gay, returns from New York to his estranged family in the wake of his Black lover’s death and his own diagnosis as HIV positive. Book Review: The Prettiest Star by Carter Sickels. Carter Sickels Hub City Press (Apr 14, 2020) Hardcover $26.00 978-1-938235-62-7 A family grapples with prejudice and impending loss in Carter Sickels’s historical novel The Prettiest Star.. Near the end of the book the narrator says "Say AIDS out loud" and I did it and I got choked up ? I am not generally a soft or weepy person, but life has been throwing me curves lately and I think the build up was like a dam bursting. His family doesn't even want their neighbors to know he is gay, much less that he has AIDS, and the lack of understanding of the disease causes its own list of problems. I want to teach this book. This was a story about AIDS. kirkus review A breathtaking collection of tender poems about love and loss. The novel rotates through the first-person perspectives of Brian; his mom, Sharon; and his 14-year-old sister, Jess. I am so grateful to Carter Sickels and Hub City Press for giving us the gift of The Prettiest Star. Carter Sickels' "The Prettiest Star" is an AIDS story that we have needed, that has been missing, and that will remind you about where we have come from. Honestly one of the best LGBTQ+ books I’ve read this year, by a truly gifted writer. The disease is ravishing his life and the people in it so Brian makes the decision to go home to die. The Prettiest Star is an extended examination of vulnerability and loyalty on both a large and small scale." He believes in your empathy as a reader and doesn’t try to make you cry with manipulative scenes. Near the end of the book the narrator says "Say AIDS out loud" and I did it and I got choked up ? After his love dies of AIDs, Brian sees ghosts everywhere in New York City. The situation is sad and desperate enough, sadder considering its realism. This is the second novel I’ve read about the AIDS epidemic in the 80s (the first one was The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai). All of us. It was so sad. It tells the story of a young man named Brian in 1986, who comes home to small town Ohio and the parents who rejected him for being gay. He’s also alone; Shawn has already died, isolated in a hospital ward. His essays and fiction have appeared or are forthcoming in various publications, including Guernica, Bellevue Literary Review, Green Mountains Review, and BuzzFeed. 4 reviews. “The Prettiest Star” is the second novel by Carter Sickels; the first was “The Evening Hour.” Photo: Hub City Press. How will his family cope with the fact that their beautiful son is gay but also has AIDS and how will the town react when they find out? Bestsellers Book lists Best Of 2020. Observant Jess, who shares with her brother a love of whales and David Bowie songs, struggles to find her place in this changed world. • The story is told from the viewpoints of Brian, his 14-year-old sister, and his middle-aged mother, who all sound strikingly similar to each other, and centers on the hate the family’s flooded with when the bigoted townsfolk learn of.