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3.79 AVERAGE
3.79 AVERAGE
Voice seems to be the intended hook here. The book lacks a plot and the text itself has no particular sense of immediacy, making the character and diction the central focus. Frank discussions of sex and liberal use of obscenity frame the meandering story of Evan's recovery.
Too often, the text lapsed into summaries of significant periods of time, telling rather than really narrating, a focus more on words than their use. I find that the novelty of references to masturbation quickly wears off, especially as they become rather mundane for their repetition.
There were some clever turns of phrase and the relationships were refreshingly realistic, but for me that was not quite enough that I would reread. While I would have liked something more, the book makes no promises on which it fails to deliver. It is what it is.
So overall this was perhaps a solid work but simply not my taste. The one thing that really bothered me was the misuse of homophones; the editor should have caught their/they're and your/you're confusion and didn't often enough that it was as much a theme as the main character's splenectomy scar.
Too often, the text lapsed into summaries of significant periods of time, telling rather than really narrating, a focus more on words than their use. I find that the novelty of references to masturbation quickly wears off, especially as they become rather mundane for their repetition.
There were some clever turns of phrase and the relationships were refreshingly realistic, but for me that was not quite enough that I would reread. While I would have liked something more, the book makes no promises on which it fails to deliver. It is what it is.
So overall this was perhaps a solid work but simply not my taste. The one thing that really bothered me was the misuse of homophones; the editor should have caught their/they're and your/you're confusion and didn't often enough that it was as much a theme as the main character's splenectomy scar.
I was reluctant about this book from the title alone, but this book charmed me with its fantastic characterization. I can't wait to see what this debut author does next.
Originally posted on Once Upon a Bookcase.
When I first heard about Sex and Violence by Carrie Mesrobian - an eBook only novel here in the UK - I was really intrigued, but a little worried it would be quite heavy. And although a serious book, it's nothing like I thought it would be. Sex and Violence is awesome!
Evan Carter is good with the girls. He knows who to go after, and who will give it up, and gets into a lot of girls' underwear. But when he goes after Colette, everything goes wrong. He gets beaten to within an inch of his life by Colette's ex-boyfriend, and the ex of a girl who's interested in him. Mental scars as well as physical ones are left behind, and Evan is a changed boy. His views on girls and sex goes from one extreme to the other - something to be avoided at all costs. When his father moves him to the family cabin in Pearl Lake, the close knit group of seniors who holiday at the lake take him in. As the summer goes by, he has to deal with his now changed ideas towards sex, and his fear.
Despite it's rather unfortunate title, Sex and Violence isn't about sex and violence, but Evan, his mental state and his view on the two. Nor is Sex and Violence graphic, in either area. What happened to him and Colette is absolutely disgusting, and Evan has a lot of demons to battle, but it's a lot more of an internal story. Mesrobian does it really well; Through Evan's narration, you know that what took place is was horrific, too horrific to spend too much time thinking about, without making it seem like she's not writing about it because it's too much. It's Evan that doesn't want to go there in reliving and describing. You get the jist and the after-affects, but he's not in any place to really talk about it.
Because of how badly he is affected, Evan really struggles for a good while to form real relationships with his new "friends" at Pearl Lake. There are a whole group of people who've known each other their whole life, and they welcome Evan into their fold with open arms. They're such a great group of people, some making only brief appearances, yet each character is so well developed, they all make a big impression. It's a great cast of characters, and it's great to watch Evan's relationship of each, and see his changing opinion as time goes by. He's the new guy, and sometimes keeps to himself, and despite not knowing what his issues were, everyone was generally really nice to him in their own way. It's great to see a huge group of just normal teenagers just being nice.
Sex and Violence is a really moving, and I think, powerful novel. I'm sure Colette would have her own story to tell, but to have Evan's story is really different, but important, as he's not just dealing with what has happened to him, but with what happened to Colette too, and his guilt over it. Such a great story, a brilliant debut, and a read I highly recommend! Definitely look forward to what Mesrobian writes next!
Thank you to Michael O'Mara Books for the eProof.
When I first heard about Sex and Violence by Carrie Mesrobian - an eBook only novel here in the UK - I was really intrigued, but a little worried it would be quite heavy. And although a serious book, it's nothing like I thought it would be. Sex and Violence is awesome!
Evan Carter is good with the girls. He knows who to go after, and who will give it up, and gets into a lot of girls' underwear. But when he goes after Colette, everything goes wrong. He gets beaten to within an inch of his life by Colette's ex-boyfriend, and the ex of a girl who's interested in him. Mental scars as well as physical ones are left behind, and Evan is a changed boy. His views on girls and sex goes from one extreme to the other - something to be avoided at all costs. When his father moves him to the family cabin in Pearl Lake, the close knit group of seniors who holiday at the lake take him in. As the summer goes by, he has to deal with his now changed ideas towards sex, and his fear.
Despite it's rather unfortunate title, Sex and Violence isn't about sex and violence, but Evan, his mental state and his view on the two. Nor is Sex and Violence graphic, in either area. What happened to him and Colette is absolutely disgusting, and Evan has a lot of demons to battle, but it's a lot more of an internal story. Mesrobian does it really well; Through Evan's narration, you know that what took place is was horrific, too horrific to spend too much time thinking about, without making it seem like she's not writing about it because it's too much. It's Evan that doesn't want to go there in reliving and describing. You get the jist and the after-affects, but he's not in any place to really talk about it.
Because of how badly he is affected, Evan really struggles for a good while to form real relationships with his new "friends" at Pearl Lake. There are a whole group of people who've known each other their whole life, and they welcome Evan into their fold with open arms. They're such a great group of people, some making only brief appearances, yet each character is so well developed, they all make a big impression. It's a great cast of characters, and it's great to watch Evan's relationship of each, and see his changing opinion as time goes by. He's the new guy, and sometimes keeps to himself, and despite not knowing what his issues were, everyone was generally really nice to him in their own way. It's great to see a huge group of just normal teenagers just being nice.
Sex and Violence is a really moving, and I think, powerful novel. I'm sure Colette would have her own story to tell, but to have Evan's story is really different, but important, as he's not just dealing with what has happened to him, but with what happened to Colette too, and his guilt over it. Such a great story, a brilliant debut, and a read I highly recommend! Definitely look forward to what Mesrobian writes next!
Thank you to Michael O'Mara Books for the eProof.
SEX & VIOLENCE is a raw and honest portrayal of a boy living his life and trying to move on after suffering a traumatic experience.
Finding girls to have sex with has always been easy for Evan Carter, who moves house and changes schools constantly because of his father's job. But when he hooks up with a girl he shouldn't, he provokes the anger of two guys who beat him until he's half-dead. Though he just manages to survive the assault, he finds that it has left him damaged in more ways than one. After moving again to a lakeside cabin in rural Minnesota where his father grew up, Evan starts to learn to see things differently.
Evan's voice was so incredible. I loved it so much. He felt like a very authentic teenage boy to me. This is the second book I've read in a row where I feel like it's really true to life, where nothing's wrapped up neatly at the end, where it's not about the happily ever after or the swoony romance. It was just a story about a regular teenage boy who has a pretty shitty attitude towards women and actually towards people in general: he doesn't have friends, male or female, because he's always moving, and whenever he gets to a new place all he cares about is which girl will be the most likely to have sex with him and how to get her. And he always gets her and leaves her straight after. Then he suffers a horrific assault and he realises that he can't be the same person he used to be anymore. He's still kind of a dick a lot of the time, but it's interesting to read about what goes on in his head.
There's PTSD, there's lingering grief over his mother who died when he was young, and I really enjoyed watching Evan stumble towards healing and start to form deeper relationships with the people around him, especially with the girls, and with his father. The setting was amazing as well: the lake and the small community around it, with an intriguing abandoned house on a small island in the middle of the lake that hides family secrets for Evan. I loved how the story progressed in ways I never expected but it was all so beautifully honest and real. I was completely immersed in it and in Evan's life. It's not a story where anything big happens apart from the assault at the beginning, but it's still really engaging.
But something bugged me about this story the whole time, and it was that the girl that he hooked up with at the beginning, Colette, suffered way, way worse than Evan did as a result of their time together. And yet she just disappears from the story after Evan moves away. Evan thinks about her a lot, and he's guilty about what happened to her, and he writes letters to her that he'll never send, but... That's it. We're just told what happened to her in Evan's words, long after the fact. We never get Colette's voice, never know how she feels about everything. And I found that problematic, because while yes, I totally agree that Evan's story and Evan's trauma is important and worth telling, I also found it disturbing how Colette was just some silent victim who seemed to serve as a prop in Evan's story.
I was also not entirely happy with how homosexuality was approached in this novel. There's a character that Evan and other people in the book keep speculating is gay because he 'looks gay' and wears yoga pants or whatever, and I thought it was just really stereotypical. It was brought up over and over again as well and I was so tired of it. Evan also thought "What part of me looks gay?" when his therapist was trying not to assume anything about his sexuality, which really annoyed me. There was absolutely nothing in this book to show that that sort of attitude was wrong. In fact the book seemed to affirm that Evan was right to try and judge whether people were gay by their appearances. I was still really hoping that we would get a gay character in the book who wasn't stereotypical to counter these things, but no such luck.
Still, I really enjoyed the book. I loved how realistic it was and I loved its explorations of masculinity and sex. I honestly felt like I was getting a snapshot of a real life and experiencing everything with Evan.
Finding girls to have sex with has always been easy for Evan Carter, who moves house and changes schools constantly because of his father's job. But when he hooks up with a girl he shouldn't, he provokes the anger of two guys who beat him until he's half-dead. Though he just manages to survive the assault, he finds that it has left him damaged in more ways than one. After moving again to a lakeside cabin in rural Minnesota where his father grew up, Evan starts to learn to see things differently.
Evan's voice was so incredible. I loved it so much. He felt like a very authentic teenage boy to me. This is the second book I've read in a row where I feel like it's really true to life, where nothing's wrapped up neatly at the end, where it's not about the happily ever after or the swoony romance. It was just a story about a regular teenage boy who has a pretty shitty attitude towards women and actually towards people in general: he doesn't have friends, male or female, because he's always moving, and whenever he gets to a new place all he cares about is which girl will be the most likely to have sex with him and how to get her. And he always gets her and leaves her straight after. Then he suffers a horrific assault and he realises that he can't be the same person he used to be anymore. He's still kind of a dick a lot of the time, but it's interesting to read about what goes on in his head.
There's PTSD, there's lingering grief over his mother who died when he was young, and I really enjoyed watching Evan stumble towards healing and start to form deeper relationships with the people around him, especially with the girls, and with his father. The setting was amazing as well: the lake and the small community around it, with an intriguing abandoned house on a small island in the middle of the lake that hides family secrets for Evan. I loved how the story progressed in ways I never expected but it was all so beautifully honest and real. I was completely immersed in it and in Evan's life. It's not a story where anything big happens apart from the assault at the beginning, but it's still really engaging.
But something bugged me about this story the whole time, and it was that the girl that he hooked up with at the beginning, Colette, suffered way, way worse than Evan did as a result of their time together. And yet she just disappears from the story after Evan moves away. Evan thinks about her a lot, and he's guilty about what happened to her, and he writes letters to her that he'll never send, but... That's it. We're just told what happened to her in Evan's words, long after the fact. We never get Colette's voice, never know how she feels about everything. And I found that problematic, because while yes, I totally agree that Evan's story and Evan's trauma is important and worth telling, I also found it disturbing how Colette was just some silent victim who seemed to serve as a prop in Evan's story.
I was also not entirely happy with how homosexuality was approached in this novel. There's a character that Evan and other people in the book keep speculating is gay because he 'looks gay' and wears yoga pants or whatever, and I thought it was just really stereotypical. It was brought up over and over again as well and I was so tired of it. Evan also thought "What part of me looks gay?" when his therapist was trying not to assume anything about his sexuality, which really annoyed me. There was absolutely nothing in this book to show that that sort of attitude was wrong. In fact the book seemed to affirm that Evan was right to try and judge whether people were gay by their appearances. I was still really hoping that we would get a gay character in the book who wasn't stereotypical to counter these things, but no such luck.
Still, I really enjoyed the book. I loved how realistic it was and I loved its explorations of masculinity and sex. I honestly felt like I was getting a snapshot of a real life and experiencing everything with Evan.
This one has been on my TBR forever, and I'm so glad I finally got it from the library. It faces reality head on, and it avoids a lot of easy cliches and tropes I was worried about at first. I'll be thinking this one over for a while.
Good, but a little meandering toward the end. I understand why the author wanted to give the main character another relationship, but I felt like we went through the evolution of too many during the course of the book. The last one with Jordan felt tacked on.
From the "Final Thoughts" portion of my review:
Sex & Violence is a doozy of a novel — powerful, intense, a breath of fresh air and not a book that you can just read but are FORCED to engage with. I loved Evan’s POV — brutally honest, snarky & full of pain — and I really loved, as painful as it could be at times, watching his growth and arc in the novel. It tackles some tough things with an honest voice and offers up a lot for the reader to digest. On a reading experience level though, my enjoyment/connection to this novel kind of unraveled 3/4 way-ish through and I never regained the kind of level of FEELINGS I had in the first half. But I still think this novel is brilliant if that makes sense?
For my full, in depth review check out my blog
Sex & Violence is a doozy of a novel — powerful, intense, a breath of fresh air and not a book that you can just read but are FORCED to engage with. I loved Evan’s POV — brutally honest, snarky & full of pain — and I really loved, as painful as it could be at times, watching his growth and arc in the novel. It tackles some tough things with an honest voice and offers up a lot for the reader to digest. On a reading experience level though, my enjoyment/connection to this novel kind of unraveled 3/4 way-ish through and I never regained the kind of level of FEELINGS I had in the first half. But I still think this novel is brilliant if that makes sense?
For my full, in depth review check out my blog
1.5 stars
It is difficult to rate this book as it was near impossible to actually like any of the characters. There were glimmers of hope for Evan's character but ultimately I failed to see much actual growth and definitely did not witness any moral growth. Yes, Evan eventually overcomes his PTSD and gains an attachment to a girl that is more than about sex, but honestly these revelations felt a bit unbelievable and rushed in the end. Overall, I felt sorry for the violence that occurred regarding Evan but ultimately I found it difficult to feel much more than that.
I will say that Mesrobian captured the male voice fairly well, I will not say wholly as I am not male myself. Although the male bonding and lingo shown in the book is fairly reminiscent of conversations and dealings I have overheard or witnessed of the opposite sex over the years. But it was not representative of every male, of course, nor was it pleasant to read. I grew quite frustrated with the flippant use of derogatory terms, namely against women and gays. Ultimately I do not know whether the author intended this abusive dialogue to be representative of her characters or if she actually thinks it is acceptable. Due to the hints of feminism I saw in the book at times I am giving the author a break, although there was nothing to counteract the use of the word "gay" to describe lame things and it added to my dislike of the book.
It is difficult to rate this book as it was near impossible to actually like any of the characters. There were glimmers of hope for Evan's character but ultimately I failed to see much actual growth and definitely did not witness any moral growth. Yes, Evan eventually overcomes his PTSD and gains an attachment to a girl that is more than about sex, but honestly these revelations felt a bit unbelievable and rushed in the end. Overall, I felt sorry for the violence that occurred regarding Evan but ultimately I found it difficult to feel much more than that.
I will say that Mesrobian captured the male voice fairly well, I will not say wholly as I am not male myself. Although the male bonding and lingo shown in the book is fairly reminiscent of conversations and dealings I have overheard or witnessed of the opposite sex over the years. But it was not representative of every male, of course, nor was it pleasant to read. I grew quite frustrated with the flippant use of derogatory terms, namely against women and gays. Ultimately I do not know whether the author intended this abusive dialogue to be representative of her characters or if she actually thinks it is acceptable. Due to the hints of feminism I saw in the book at times I am giving the author a break, although there was nothing to counteract the use of the word "gay" to describe lame things and it added to my dislike of the book.
Evan knows he's not a good person, and in the beginning, he really is the dirtbag he thinks he is. All he cares about is finding the girl most likely to have sex with him without all of the relationship issues. Then, he gets involved with the wrong girl and almost dies. The aftermath sends him and his father to the old family home on a lake in Minnesota. Evan spends the summer figuring out how to deal with a dad who's actually around, how to actually interact with other people who want to be his friend, and especially how to be around girls without being the dirtbag he used to be. He's broken and knows he's broken and has to figure out how he can move on.
The book is dark and funny and Evan's not always a great guy, but he's so completely likeable with all of his flaws that you really start rooting for him to be okay. This book isn't going to be for everyone. There's a lot of swearing, and the descriptions are often graphic, so you'll really have to know your reader if you recommend this.
The book is dark and funny and Evan's not always a great guy, but he's so completely likeable with all of his flaws that you really start rooting for him to be okay. This book isn't going to be for everyone. There's a lot of swearing, and the descriptions are often graphic, so you'll really have to know your reader if you recommend this.