Sex and Violence by Carrie Mesrobian

Did you just make a face when you read the title? You are not the only one: you ought to see how my family reacted. Boy, have they given me a hard time....and they don't know what they are missing.

Mesrobian hits a difficult home run with this novel. Evan starts out a sex-driven, rude, selfish teen male who gets close to girls just to sleep with them and then move on. But Evan gets the crap beaten out of him (as does someone else he is surprisingly caring about) and Evan has to find his own way to pick up the pieces and move on. The assault breaks Evan in many ways, and it is by finding his way through the breaks that he matures, finds and tells his own truth, and settles into his own life. No spoiler alerts here but I loved how Evan and another character banter therapist phrases back and forth, how the deserted island serves as a placeholder for much of life, and how Evan turns from being an absolute jerk to me to being a true human with a little kindness under the hood.

While the title remains a challenge for me, the book is super solid, and for that, I will keep on picking it up and talking about it. Yep, Sex and Violence. Me. Really. Wanna have a go? I think you will agree. Then we can smile at each other when we say we really enjoyed it.