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mollywetta's review
4.0
This had great voice and was very character driven. Full review at wrapped up in books.
prowse's review
1.0
Sex & Violence by Carrie Mesrobian is simply not my cup of tea… Obviously there is a lot of sex and violence, but I was still shocked by the extreme casualness associated with the sex and the lack of any real recourse. I was also taken aback by the glorification of drug use and the extensive use of curses. Ultimately, while the characters were lovable and well-developed, the story line was lacking. This left me frustrated that I had endured the sex, violence, drugs, and curses for nothing - with the story hanging mid-thought without any conclusion. It not only saddens me that there are (probably many) teenagers who live this lifestyle, but it is beyond upsetting that teenagers may rationalize these life choices when they are provided with role models in books who make these same choices.
jshel10's review
5.0
Wow. Don't think I've read anything like this one. Evan Carter, by his own admission, is not a good guy at the beginning of the book. Then something awful happens that forces him to reconsider who he is. Tremendous voice and I'm trying to think of a book that depicts a character transformation as well as this one does and I can't come up with anything. Yes, the themes (sex, violence) are mature, but guess what? So are sophisticated YA readers. This book nails what it's like to be a confused, rudderless teenager who doesn't think about consequences until he's forced to. It also shows that there's a light at the end of the tunnel if you look long and hard enough. Great, great book.
blackerbird's review
I'm still trying to process how I really feel about this book. I don't like the title at all. I feel like it is a "shock and awe" attempt to grab readers. Also, I'm just not sold on the sex crazed teen and his story. There were parts that I felt were truly beautiful, but overall just too much emphasis on sex, drugs, and really bad decisions. I know this is a YA book, but it's really pushing the limit.
maggiemaggio's review
5.0
I expected this book to be good, I first heard about it after I saw a bunch of authors I love Tweeting about it. But I’ll admit, the subject matter had me a little worried. Somehow, in my head, I built up this idea that I would spend a lot of time getting to know Evan, the main character, and then there would be this terrible attack and I’d have to read about a character I liked getting gravely injured. Lucky for me, Evan getting attacked comes right at the beginning of the book and while it was still terrible (I hate reading/watching violence) it was nice to get it over with and get on with Evan getting on with his life.
Evan has a lot of catchphrases. He was always “The Fucking New Guy” at schools because his dad moved him around a lot for his job; I think Evan attended something like six different high schools by the time his junior year comes around. The bad part of Evan’s personality, he calls him “Dirtbag Evan,” has managed to figure out how to exploit being “The Fucking New Guy” to “get down”(do people really use that phrase to describe sex? I’m not trying to be critical, I’m really curious because if a guy said that to me I would just burst out laughing) with as many girls as possible.
Honestly, I wasn’t that bothered by Dirtbag Evan. To me he seemed like what every teenage boy probably dreams about: having sex with lots of girls and not having to deal with teenage girl drama. While most teenage guys probably don’t have the confidence/balls to follow through on their fantasies, Evan has had the right blend of screwed up experiences (his mom died when he was young, his dad’s around but emotionally absent, and. as we already established, Evan has no stability) to allow him to go after girls in this way. And he really does go after girls, he has a profile of the type of girl who will be up for getting down shortly after meeting and then not getting clingy afterwards. Is this pretty douchey? Yeah, absolutely, but it quickly becomes clear how screwed up Evan’s life has been and how insecure and hurt he is and it was hard to hold this behavior against him.
At his latest school, a boarding school, Evan starts hooking up with his roommate’s ex-girlfriend, Collette. They keep their hooking up a secret, but the roommate and his friends find out and attack Evan, and later Collette, in the dorm shower. For most of the book what happened to Collette is only hinted at, but eventually we find out a little about what happened and I don’t know if I’ve ever wished I could unknow something so much. It was just appalling.
After Evan’s mostly recovered from the attack his father decides to man up and takes Evan to their family’s lake cabin in rural Minnesota. There, for the first time, Evan has some stability. His father befriends the neighbors and even though Evan would rather be alone with his crazy coping mechanisms and without people being all up in his business, in a small town he kind of has no choice about either of those things. Watching an eighteen year old screwed up guy learn to make friends with the locals was pretty much one of the most interesting social experiments I’ve ever read.
It’s once Evan really starts to come into himself in this new town that I fell head over heels for him as a character. I really loved Dirtbag Evan too, so I’m not quite sure what that says about me or Evan, but I really, really loved small town Evan. Once they settle in Minnesota Evan’s dad, who’s obviously trying to be a better dad, but is still kind of totally miserable at it, makes Evan start seeing a therapist. Evan’s descriptions of Dr. Penny were hilarious, but I loved Dr. Penny for the letters she suggests Evan write to help him move on from what happened. He addresses the (unsent) letters to Collette and his thought process, the way he processes things over the course of the book, and his personal growth really shined through in the letters (I cried several times while reading them) and totally just sold me on the book.
There was a certain point in time where I expected this book to end and it got to that point and then kept going. At first I was nervous about it, was Carrie Mesrobian going to be one of those authors who can’t say goodbye to characters? But once again I was totally blown away by what she managed to do. It was the perfect blend of closure, but not too much closure.
Bottom Line: Seriously I loved this book. Just go read it. Sex & Violence has a fantastic male narrator, a unique take on a difficult subject matter, and some seriously amazing writing. Go read it. Go read it. Go read it.
This review first appeared on my blog.
Evan has a lot of catchphrases. He was always “The Fucking New Guy” at schools because his dad moved him around a lot for his job; I think Evan attended something like six different high schools by the time his junior year comes around. The bad part of Evan’s personality, he calls him “Dirtbag Evan,” has managed to figure out how to exploit being “The Fucking New Guy” to “get down”(do people really use that phrase to describe sex? I’m not trying to be critical, I’m really curious because if a guy said that to me I would just burst out laughing) with as many girls as possible.
Honestly, I wasn’t that bothered by Dirtbag Evan. To me he seemed like what every teenage boy probably dreams about: having sex with lots of girls and not having to deal with teenage girl drama. While most teenage guys probably don’t have the confidence/balls to follow through on their fantasies, Evan has had the right blend of screwed up experiences (his mom died when he was young, his dad’s around but emotionally absent, and. as we already established, Evan has no stability) to allow him to go after girls in this way. And he really does go after girls, he has a profile of the type of girl who will be up for getting down shortly after meeting and then not getting clingy afterwards. Is this pretty douchey? Yeah, absolutely, but it quickly becomes clear how screwed up Evan’s life has been and how insecure and hurt he is and it was hard to hold this behavior against him.
At his latest school, a boarding school, Evan starts hooking up with his roommate’s ex-girlfriend, Collette. They keep their hooking up a secret, but the roommate and his friends find out and attack Evan, and later Collette, in the dorm shower. For most of the book what happened to Collette is only hinted at, but eventually we find out a little about what happened and I don’t know if I’ve ever wished I could unknow something so much. It was just appalling.
After Evan’s mostly recovered from the attack his father decides to man up and takes Evan to their family’s lake cabin in rural Minnesota. There, for the first time, Evan has some stability. His father befriends the neighbors and even though Evan would rather be alone with his crazy coping mechanisms and without people being all up in his business, in a small town he kind of has no choice about either of those things. Watching an eighteen year old screwed up guy learn to make friends with the locals was pretty much one of the most interesting social experiments I’ve ever read.
It’s once Evan really starts to come into himself in this new town that I fell head over heels for him as a character. I really loved Dirtbag Evan too, so I’m not quite sure what that says about me or Evan, but I really, really loved small town Evan. Once they settle in Minnesota Evan’s dad, who’s obviously trying to be a better dad, but is still kind of totally miserable at it, makes Evan start seeing a therapist. Evan’s descriptions of Dr. Penny were hilarious, but I loved Dr. Penny for the letters she suggests Evan write to help him move on from what happened. He addresses the (unsent) letters to Collette and his thought process, the way he processes things over the course of the book, and his personal growth really shined through in the letters (I cried several times while reading them) and totally just sold me on the book.
There was a certain point in time where I expected this book to end and it got to that point and then kept going. At first I was nervous about it, was Carrie Mesrobian going to be one of those authors who can’t say goodbye to characters? But once again I was totally blown away by what she managed to do. It was the perfect blend of closure, but not too much closure.
Bottom Line: Seriously I loved this book. Just go read it. Sex & Violence has a fantastic male narrator, a unique take on a difficult subject matter, and some seriously amazing writing. Go read it. Go read it. Go read it.
This review first appeared on my blog.
kate_brauning's review
5.0
Fabulous, gripping, and a killer voice. It's an engrossing and harsh-but-funny read as well as a thought-provoking exploration of how sex and violence affect young people. Read it. You won't regret it.
scrollsofdragons's review
3.0
I really liked it.
I wish we had got more closure, I really do, the ending was kind of left open which was annoying. So was Evan talking about the things girls do constantly, like dude we get it that you're male okay and you don't get women, now can you move on? It also seemed like a feminist novel, which are great and all but aren't something I like to read. And I didn't like the thing with Lana, I was digging that he was traumatised but then he did that, knew he could get beat up for sleeping with her and did it anyway, why Evan why be so stupid for sex with a girl you don't even like that much? Yeah, you sound traumatised mate.
That was my problems with it that knocked this down to a 3 star for me because I did really enjoy it and liked Evan.
What I liked it for: Finally we have a charcator in YA that has sex on ones mind, because a lot of the time, boy or girl perspective, they don't think of sex much. They also don't drink or do drugs much, and if they do it's made to be a bad thing-i'm not saying it's a good thing but teens experiment and that kind of shit happens. And no one writes about it but Carrie Mesrobian does.
No demoralising of what teens do, yes thank you.
A nice realistic look into a teen world.
A narrator that has a voice and personality, even though he's a bit of an idiot. And other fleshed out characters for that matter.
I'm not going to say that Evan sounded boyish because he did but there was instances that revealed that the author wasn't a dude and I don't want to think about the author's gender when I'm reading (Let me go into that more, basically, I could see that Evan thought like a dude. But there was things he said that sounded like the author trying to make him seem very manish, that suggested to me without knowing the authors name that it was a woman and I want there to be written a charcator with making me think of the author.)
Although comparing some other young adult, it's a much better male voice so kudo's for that.
I wish we had got more closure, I really do, the ending was kind of left open which was annoying. So was Evan talking about the things girls do constantly, like dude we get it that you're male okay and you don't get women, now can you move on? It also seemed like a feminist novel, which are great and all but aren't something I like to read. And I didn't like the thing with Lana, I was digging that he was traumatised but then he did that, knew he could get beat up for sleeping with her and did it anyway, why Evan why be so stupid for sex with a girl you don't even like that much? Yeah, you sound traumatised mate.
That was my problems with it that knocked this down to a 3 star for me because I did really enjoy it and liked Evan.
What I liked it for: Finally we have a charcator in YA that has sex on ones mind, because a lot of the time, boy or girl perspective, they don't think of sex much. They also don't drink or do drugs much, and if they do it's made to be a bad thing-i'm not saying it's a good thing but teens experiment and that kind of shit happens. And no one writes about it but Carrie Mesrobian does.
No demoralising of what teens do, yes thank you.
A nice realistic look into a teen world.
A narrator that has a voice and personality, even though he's a bit of an idiot. And other fleshed out characters for that matter.
I'm not going to say that Evan sounded boyish because he did but there was instances that revealed that the author wasn't a dude and I don't want to think about the author's gender when I'm reading (Let me go into that more, basically, I could see that Evan thought like a dude. But there was things he said that sounded like the author trying to make him seem very manish, that suggested to me without knowing the authors name that it was a woman and I want there to be written a charcator with making me think of the author.)
Although comparing some other young adult, it's a much better male voice so kudo's for that.
blakehalsey's review
5.0
This books is a really moving portrayal of...wait for it...sex and violence. Mesrobian creates a really intriguing character in Evan Carter, a boy for whom sex has always been easy and who finds himself reaping horrible consequences for some of his choices, no matter how undeserved. After getting beat within an inch of his life for messing around with the wrong girl, he retreats to a small town in Minnesota with his distant father. There he struggles through both psychological and physical issues caused by his path, but there he also finds a cycle of healing. What I like about this book is that Mesrobian didn't get preachy--Evan wasn't perfect and whole by the end. He never really reconciled with the girl who got hurt or the girl who helped him see girls in a new, more respectful light, but he found his way. However brief her appearance, I really liked the way he was with Jordan and how he found a way to be with someone without it being all about sex. I still love Baker, though, and hope they remain friends. SEX & VIOLENCE is a wonderful, startling, sometimes painful story, with a great, fresh voice and real, complex characters.
kricketa's review
4.0
i'm not sure why the awesomeness of this book came as such a surprise to me. it's a very small, unassuming book that packs a powerful punch. i loved it.
sc104906's review
5.0
Evan is always the new guy. He has come to the point in his life where he doesn't make friends and only fleetingly interacts with girls when it involves sex. This transient lifestyle eventually catches up with him, when he is attacked by classmates. Evan must now pick up the pieces after this life altering event.
This book was very interesting. It wasn't perfect/ideal, but that is what added to the awesomeness of the book. The main character was a total jerk, but now matter how awful he is, there is no reason for the violence to occur. It was a gritty portrayal of reality and someone coping with a horrific event.
This book was very interesting. It wasn't perfect/ideal, but that is what added to the awesomeness of the book. The main character was a total jerk, but now matter how awful he is, there is no reason for the violence to occur. It was a gritty portrayal of reality and someone coping with a horrific event.