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A review by maggiemaggio
Sex & Violence by Carrie Mesrobian
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.