Most of us have things in our lives that we can obsess on.  In fact, ask any teenage girl and she’ll immediately tell you that her nose it too big or too small, she has too many freckles or not enough, that her eyebrows are too thin or too bushy; the possible list is endless.  We can spend hours agonizing and obsessing over features that the rest of the world doesn’t even notice.  

 

In Stealing Wishes, Shannon Yarbrough takes us inside the mind of 32 year old, self-diagnosed, obsessive-compulsive, Blaine, who is a picture taking coffee barista.  This light romantic comedy is told in an introspective, narrative style and the reader is drawn into Blaine’s world as he wakes up each morning at 5:32, sets his alarm for 16 minutes later to allow time for a shower and shave, and then sets the alarm for the next 16 minute increment to allow time for eating breakfast. As you might have guessed, one of Blaine’s obsessions surrounds the number 32, the number of his apartment, his current age, as well as multiples of 32, and how he relates everything possible to this number.

 

Blaine loves his job as a coffee barista, because it allows him to control his environment by organizing all of the items and to set up routines for each type of drink ordered. The off work hours are spent with his camera, taking pictures of people he doesn’t know and putting them in photo albums.  They are his memories of moments in his life. His best friend, Sallie, is also his boss, and since they are both single, they frequently go out bar or restaurant hopping together.  This all changes when Sallie meets Charlie, they become a couple and then set Blaine up on a blind date with Charlie’s friend Edward.

 

One of the few things that Blaine and Edward have in common is their enjoyment of the writings of Christopher Isherwood.  Will that be enough to sustain the relationship? The park that Blaine frequents on a regular, almost daily basis, is Bachardy park which is exactly 32 blocks from the coffee shop where Blaine works.  Since author Christopher Isherwoood had a high-profile, openly gay relationship with Don Bachardy from early 1953 through Isherwood’s death in 1986, it is just one more way in which the life and writings of Christopher Isherwood influence this book.

 

While not being my usual genre, I thoroughly enjoyed reading Stealing Wishes as it provides a glimpse of a lifestyle outside of my own.  It shows modern day relationships as you only learn the first name of any of the characters.  The theme of the book is universal as we all contemplate at one time or other what love is, and struggle with the intricacies of  relationships, whether gay, hetero, or both.

 

At the beginning of the book, Blaine tells the readers, “I am a camera (too).”  Stealing Wishes represents the word snapshot of the moments of Blaine’s life.