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Summary: If This Word Were Mine
Review: I loved this book, as well as any other E. Lynn Harris Book. Even though his work deals with the gay lifestyle, there are real life situations that everyone can relate to."If this world were Mine" deals with four friends who start a journal club. They write down what events in that week they would like to share with each other. In the course of these events one friend knows something about the other friends significant other and won't tell because of the patient confidentiality. which leads to big blows when the friend finds out that the other friend knew about the secret life of her boyfriend, which leads to name calling and them not speaking to each other. Until a fatal event happens when the friend is shot in a grocery store and is near death. This brings the friends closer together. This book has its funny moments, and makes you think how you should value each other's friendship. It also shows you how to be careful of what you say, becasue you don't know when the last time you will see that person.
Rating: 
Summary: If This World Were Mine what magic would I do!
Review: This book kept coming into view & I finally took it home to read. What a homecoming! Friends from their college years, four African American Chicagoans face a year of change and tragedy, memories and a testing of their friendship. From the outset of journal keeping to the visits to special places in Chicago to the relationships, this read is wonderful! A great gift!
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Summary: A MASTER AT HIS CRAFT
Review: I have read every one of E Lynn Harris's books. I have laughed,cried cheered and been angry. Harris's book opened my eyes to what gay relationships are really about. True love and passion no diffrent from any other. After reading his books I feel as if I know each charcter first hand. I have felt their pain, anger and happiness all through his style of storytelling. If you have not read E Lynn Harris you must start at the very first book up until the last. If This World Were Mine was as good as his very first book. I read each of these books in one night because I just could not put them down. But in this book the character Basil which he is in his previous books.This one answers a lot of questions that ran through my mind about the kind of person he was. YOU MUST READ !
Rating:
Summary: It was a Quick read
Review: I enjoyed the book for what it was worth, it was not the book that will change my life or how I look at people. My problem with Harris' books are why must almost every man either be gay or have gay lust. I understand that from his perspective it would be nice, but damn can the sisters get a break! Of all of the male characters in the book only 2 wern't gay! Harris' writing is entertaining but at sometimes confusing.
Rating: 
Summary: INSIGHTFUL AND ABLE TO IDENTIFY
Review: As a fan of E. Lynn Harris I have been able to identify with his writings although it makes me ill that he doesn't start from where he initially leaves off. Towards the end of his stories it gets good but then you have to wait several years in passing to see what happens next with the original characters. In reading his materials it helped me find out who and what I was and it taught me to love myself unconditionally and that I was not alone in my feelings, and thoughts. I now know what I felt wasn't voodoo but that it was reality that many of us have to experience in order to actually deal with whom and what it is that we actually are. Thanks Mr. Harris for work well done!
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Summary: If This World Were Mine: A Novel--E. Lynn Harris
Review: This book was GREAT! I could not put it down. I read it in two days. This book is all about the consequences of sneaking around in the dark. You have to realize that everything done in the dark will come to light. A must read for all! (especially men)
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Summary: not as enjoyable as his previous books
Review: I love Mr. Harris and the way he writes. Compared to his others this read like he had to meet a dead-line and breezed through it.
Rating: 
Summary: Quite possibly the WORST book I've ever read.
Review: You would be hard-pressed to find an unlikelier cast of characters or a thinner premise within the annals of literature than what you find here in Mr. Harris' latest offering. Getting together monthly to read your journal entries, and, which is worse, listening to the entries of others? Come on. I'd have a hard time with such an assignment if it were part of the curriculum of a required college course much less voluntarily submit to the ordeal. Harris should have come up with a more believable pretext for getting these disparate people together. As usual, the prose advancing Harris' storyline is flat and uninteresting, peppered with Creative Writing 101 descriptive phrases which render the whole exercise hackneyed and trite. Fans of E. Lynn Harris must not get out much, nor read much other fiction if they truly believe "This is the best book I ever read!". Among black authors, Toni Morrison is a vastly superior writer; among gay black authors, James Baldwin is without peer. Come on, people, broaden your literary horizons!
Rating: 
Summary: Boring and blase'
Review: I have read all of his works. This one lacked passion and energy. What is the deal. All of his other books were good and "And This Too Shall Pass" was exceptional. It's as if he wrote this one in a couple hours of thought. The story formula is generic and uninspired. I wish I didn't buy it. Where is the passion or heck even the story telling?! Anybody can write this story. Harris seems to have put no heart into this writing. As a fan I am disappointed. And from reading all of the "positive" reviews, I wonder if they are true fans of E. Lynn Harris. I am and I expect more.
Rating:
Summary: Thrilling, fast-paced and pure escapist pleasure!
Review: E. Lynn Harris is a genius! An incarnation of the Bard, he is not. No Pulitzer or Nobel winning stuff here - just pure commonsense and escapist fun. And what is wrong with that? Again this is not a "gay" book, although as a gay black man it has special meaning and pulls at my heart strings, rather it is universal in its depiction of life in the fast lane at the end of the twentieth century. Highly recommended to all precisely because it educates without any arty-farty pretentions. You can easily finish it in one sitting. Mr Harris tackles some thorny issues but does not take himself seriously - and this, in my view, is the ultimate strength of his writing. Kick off your shoes, sit by a fire, sip some wine and disconnect that phone. Who could ask for anything more?
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