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davramlocke 's review for:
A + E 4ever
by I. Merey
I'm not sure entirely what to think about this book. It does some things very well, does some things very poorly, and touches on topics that are frustratingly absent in 95% of most media.
The story is about a couple of high school kids who are androgynous. The female character, Eu, is sometimes boyish looking but straight. The male character, Ash, is feminine looking and bi-sexual. They meet as outcasts in the same typical high school and form a bond that lasts for...a little bit.
The story focuses on the relationship between these two characters, while touching on issues of sexual identity, social acceptance, and...youth promiscuity? I'm not sure about that last one, and I suppose that's the toughest part of the book for me.
The male character, Ash, begins the novel with a disorder where he can not be touched. It makes him vastly uncomfortable to have any contact with another human. This is interesting, but for the fact that after the first couple sections, he apparently loses this aversion and it's never mentioned again. Likewise, his sexual identity, something ambiguous from the start, is basically forced on him during a bathroom rape scene. And yet, that scene shapes him into a boy-loving sex maniac. This bothered me because I for one don't feel like rape should be the genesis of someone's sexual exploration. His reactions to this event are, frankly, baffling, and I felt like it shaped who he became for the rest of the novel; a deplorable pig.
Maybe, not having been in high school for a long time, particularly one where trans-gender teens had any place, I don't know what it's like for these young people. Maybe this book is an accurate representation. If it is, I worry because I feel like the teenagers depicted in it, with the exception of Eu is all-around pretty great, are disgusting people. Their genders and sexual preferences have nothing to do with this. It's their attitudes and actions that make them disgusting, and I suppose that's why I didn't find myself returning to the book with any kind of joy. I finished it to finish it, and was happy to be done.
The story is about a couple of high school kids who are androgynous. The female character, Eu, is sometimes boyish looking but straight. The male character, Ash, is feminine looking and bi-sexual. They meet as outcasts in the same typical high school and form a bond that lasts for...a little bit.
The story focuses on the relationship between these two characters, while touching on issues of sexual identity, social acceptance, and...youth promiscuity? I'm not sure about that last one, and I suppose that's the toughest part of the book for me.
The male character, Ash, begins the novel with a disorder where he can not be touched. It makes him vastly uncomfortable to have any contact with another human. This is interesting, but for the fact that after the first couple sections, he apparently loses this aversion and it's never mentioned again. Likewise, his sexual identity, something ambiguous from the start, is basically forced on him during a bathroom rape scene. And yet, that scene shapes him into a boy-loving sex maniac. This bothered me because I for one don't feel like rape should be the genesis of someone's sexual exploration. His reactions to this event are, frankly, baffling, and I felt like it shaped who he became for the rest of the novel; a deplorable pig.
Maybe, not having been in high school for a long time, particularly one where trans-gender teens had any place, I don't know what it's like for these young people. Maybe this book is an accurate representation. If it is, I worry because I feel like the teenagers depicted in it, with the exception of Eu is all-around pretty great, are disgusting people. Their genders and sexual preferences have nothing to do with this. It's their attitudes and actions that make them disgusting, and I suppose that's why I didn't find myself returning to the book with any kind of joy. I finished it to finish it, and was happy to be done.