A fantastic legal thriller about a 17 year old boy who is raped at his prestigious all-boy boarding school on the night of a fundraiser. The school sort-of looks the other way at this time of the year and allow the boys to drink and party and decompress. When Kamran drinks too much, he goes home to his dorm in a stupor, forgetting to lock the door and collapses into bed. In-and-out of consciousness, he has a confusing experience where another person is in his bed and he is raped.

Zara is a councillor that specializes in sexual assault, but from an institution that handles women exclusively usually. But because she is Muslim and has handled a high profile case before, Kamran convinces her to be his advocate.

The book also includes the perspective of Finn, the boy who rapes Kamran. Only, from his perspective the events were quite different. He did not obtain explicit consent; he perceived Kamran as consenting by making sounds that seemed pleasurable and not saying ‘no’ and he also was very drunk.

It becomes even more nuanced when we see the interplay between Kamran and his mother, little brother, and most especially, his father—who, in an effort to toughen Kamran up against a world who will no doubt be hard on him due to his religion and his being a brown man, has really passed out and encouraged some very troubling homophobia and traits that are toxic and, at the very least, hyper masculine.

Kamran ends up charging Finn with rape after being unable to do otherwise and forget the incident. The police, wanting to be tough on this kind of unreported crime, especially when they’ve been criticized for not doing so recently, take it court, forcing both boys to silo themselves off in a really harmful manner because of how the Justice process works. Kamran is subjected to some deplorable and invasive questioning by Finn’s lawyer. His every action is under scrutiny to undermine his credibility. It’s honestly heartbreaking.

But it’s also incredibly humane to all parties involved. The characters are very well realized and the subject matter is handled with a lot of thought and care. Many perspectives are introduced and it does a fantastic job of talking about the intersectionality of male rape and toxic masculinity. From characters Zara has to interact with, even her family and friends of whom express internalized misogyny and lack of empathy for Kamran and his situation. This book refuses to allow the reader to get off the hook by showing so many facets of the ways in which our culture is harming boys and men such that they don’t have the tools to deal with most/many problems in a healthy way.

Craft wise, it vacillates between straight up, readable but forgettable prose and structure, and a really exceptional brevity that truncates really complex ideas into short interactions and punchy dialogue. It sometimes is really masterful in its imagery and ability to set a scene as well, which makes it kind of a weird read. The rest of it seems almost tramped down to fit the commercial fiction tin. But I also think making it accessible as commercial fiction is exactly right for this book. The more books that talk about male rape and toxic masculinity, the better. Especially one so comprehensive, empathetic, and intersectional as this one is.