![]() ![]() I haven't read a book of his yet that I didn't like profusely. Once again Lyga knocks it out of the park (baseball!). It follows the mental state of the boy nicely, as he struggles for normalcy in his current relationships, and how his past troubles color him. Especially with stories like Mary Kay Letourneau, Debra Lafave, and Pamela Rogers Turner. "Dominant, aggressive older female, younger male" is not. Not to diminish anyone who was in this situation but, as far as the "dominant, aggressive, older male with younger female" relationship goes in writing, it's been done to death. ![]() And it's nice that the story is written in such a way that there's no thing you can point to and say "if we eliminate that, this'll never happen again".And it fascinates me. Because there's a huge double standard when it comes to this sort of thing. I guess there's no real good word to call it. He hangs onto what he has - baseball and math, as he has flashbacks to his sexual assaults/incidents of abuse/molestations. He feels extremely ostracized, mostly by his self. Now he's eighteen, about to graduate, and he is *angry*. It's a YA book about a high school student who had a sexual affair with a teacher when he was twelve. Still, this is a small complaint amidst a powerful novel. He captures beautifully the conflict Josh is desperate to untangle, and while Eve’s honesty at the end of the novel helps to bring the story to a close, life may not be quite this neat. Lyga does not shy away from the graphic reality of the abuse. While his parents and his friend Rachel are concerned about how Eve’s release might be traumatizing for him, Josh isn’t even sure what his reaction is. When older Josh learns that Eve is to be released from prison for good behavior, he struggles to comprehend the guilt and shame he has carried around for so long. Lyga alternates between twelve-year old and eighteen-year old Josh – during and after the abuse. Lyga deftly rolls out the story of Josh’s becoming entangled in his own confusing, conflicting emotions until he believes he is the one who brings about Eve’s downfall and arrest. While Josh may be ignorant of Eve’s deliberate designs, the reader is not. Lyga addresses the power imbalance and abuse inherent in this type of relationship. What he fails to understand is that Eve is manipulating him into a sexual relationship.Īuthor Barry Lyga tackles a topic that is usually sugarcoated as a young boy initiated into the wonders of sex by an older, more experienced woman. When she starts paying him particular attention, he eats it up. Twelve-year old Josh Mendel has a crush on his history teacher, Eve. Mueller does not honor the result of the bloody conflict to write that Neptune Small was “awarded” his freedom when the war was over.Don’t let the title mislead you: this is not a charming coming-of-age story. The writing is respectful of the true-life characters, but it uses religious veneer instead of a true exploration of the choices these men made in their lives together. This story’s overriding theme centers on loyalty and duty to a person who is good to you, even if his family holds you in bondage. Neptune makes good on his childhood promise to always bring his master home once Captain King is killed in battle at the end of 1862. Finally, as young men, they go off to war on the Confederate side as officer and manservant. Lordy goes up to New York for his law degree, but years of separation from his trusted servant do not break their bond. ![]() They fish, hunt, and enjoy good and financially imperiled times in the plantations owned by “Lordy’s” large progressive family, who not only allow house servants to read, but insist on it. But one is a slave and the other his master. Raised side by side as family in coastal Georgia, Henry Lord King and Neptune Small are called “brothers” and even “twins” by members of both their families. ![]() This is an unusual fictional account of the real-life story of two men. ![]()
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