BY Ra SHAWN CHISOLM
Reginald L. Hall’s latest novel “In Love with a Thug” is one of the hottest and deepest pieces of literature to be released this year, and once you read it, you’ll find it hard to put it down. The story is about Juan Jiles, an openly gay male, whose love and admiration for street thugs adds drama to his life which results in serious and painful consequences.
The story begins with Jiles and his first thugged out boyfriend Darnell having hot passionate sex in the shower, which is later followed by Darnell asking Jiles to help him rob in a bank robbery. At first he refuses, explaining his fears and morals, but he unfortunately changes his mind Darnell uses violence and guilt tactics to get him to participate in his crime, which turns deadly after Darnell and a bank teller are killed, during the process, while Juan gets away with close to two-hundred thousand dollars, which he uses to pursue his dreams of opening a popular celebrity hair salon. Shortly after the opening, he meets street vendor and thug Bryant Thompson, whose physique, swagger and skills in the bedroom forces the intelligent Juan to succumb to Bryant’s addictive and deceptive world, failing to realize that he may have gotten in way over his head. After their second date, Juan begins to support him financially by buying him clothes, loaning him money and even posting his bail after he was charged with resisting arrest after he attempted to assault his baby’s mother for putting crazy glue in their daughter’s eye, and while he’s head over heals for Bryant, he starts to have doubts after learning that he’s engaged to a female who’s expecting his second child. Juan confronts him about his lady, but Bryant puts on the charm to keep him under his spell.
Another aspect of the book is his friendships with his friends Anthony and Rob, who the manager of his shop, who not only support Juan and his career, they don’t hesitate to speak their minds. Especially when it comes to his relationship and how it’s affecting his professionalism, and operation of the shop. Especially when he learns that one of his employees is stealing and breaking the policy of moonlighting and when his people constantly start fights in his shop making the customers and staff unhappy. Their friendship becomes deeper when Anthony is hospitalized after being attacked, and when Rob helps Juan after he gets arrested for unknowingly having drugs in his apartment. The book also deals with the betrayal he endured from his parents especially his mother who not only kicked him out because of his sexuality, but for refusing to believe that her husband sexually molested him. Her actions forced him to become independent and possibly looking for love in the wrong places and people. When visits his parents to show them how well he’s done, not only does his mother act real shady towards him, she slaps him after he confronts his father for the acts he did to him as a child, forcing him to move on with or without their support or blessings. After leaving his former childhood home, he head to Bryant’s grandmother’s house for a party where Juan, high off ecstasy thinks that’s having dreams of having a three some with Bryant and his cousin, which in reality is real causing Bryant to attack him and throw him out, leaving him to wonder why he would do that when he was the one got him hooked on drugs and encouraged the sexual rendezvous. Adding things complicated was his trial, seeing the lady who attacked his employees in court with the prosecutors, and coping with the deaths of his friends and father and deciding to give Bryant another chance at their relationship, which comes with a price for his part in the bank robbery.
Reginald Hall penned a hot, deep and through provoking novel, which will have readers entertained and thinking about the choices they make when it comes to dating and picking a partner, and though it would have been nice for Juan’s mother to apologize for her denial of the abuse he endured, it explains many reasons why Juan strive for success and looked for love in the wrong places and person.
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