OUR OFFICIAL REVIEW OF `FRIENDS` BY GARY HOPE

Life is an adventure, even when you’re pushing seventy. Written with a lot of passion, ``Friends`` by Gary Hope is a coming of age story for the grown-up kid in all of us. At sixty-nine, Bill and Allen had lived their lives; love, marriage, divorce, and kids but at the cost of their wild, carefree years. And now their lives seemed to be at a standstill. So, on a whim, the two men decide on a road trip that takes them across the country. Well, Allen makes the decision, showing up with a rented vehicle to take on their voyage of self-discovery. This is because while Bill is a divorcee, Allen is a widow. The two enjoy each other’s company, carving out a path of good clean fun complete with comical banter. Various side characters come and go, allowing the friends to experience every tourist trap that they always wanted to see (from hiking the Grand Canyon to getting interviewed during a UC Berkley protest.) At the root of it all, is the idea of love. Bill and Allen poke fun at the fact that they’re two men traveling together in the age of gay marriage and LGBTQ acceptance. They meet a traveling female couple and discuss if two people of the same gender (who both happen to be wearing rings) were automatically a couple or if that was just an unfair assumption. But later in the story when Bill and Allen confront a group of loud drunken campers, they are quick to own their relationship. They made each other look bad-ass, strong, pointing out past military deeds. They are not a couple, but Bill and Allen love each other on a level that goes beyond romance or even family. Bill’s wife Eliza left him nearly a decade ago. But he never had the confidence to ask why he simply let her go. That was how he lived his life. He never wanted to cause a scene or speak from his heart and mind. Allen was similar in personality, and even grief, having lost his wife Barbra. Except his wife was dead, not just `away`. For Allen, there would be no second chances. It’s clear that Allen wants Bill to live life without regrets. This results in a series of events with no real goal. They take turns picking dream locations, tourist destinations they always wanted to see. Their travels were punctuated with stone skipping duels, taking them back to the carefree days of their childhood. Author Gary Hope sums up the beauty of their hero’s journey with the line, ``They were just horses being horses; doing what God put them on earth to do. Just being wild and free`` My final rating is 4/5 since the story seems to drag-on at parts, filling the word-count with random historical facts pertaining to the tourist attraction that Bill and Allen are visiting. But the ending sums up the plot well, tying up the tale not with a bow but with a knot; sturdy, calm and realistic. Mary R. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………Book Reviewer, Bookie Books