eralbesu's review against another edition
dark
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Wow. This is a very dark read. The writer brings you into the mind of a young, sociopathic, manipulative pedophile who is obsessed with youth and satisfying her sexual desires for pubescent boys. That is the hardest part about reading this story. Having to witness the thought process of a child predator and seeing how she uses her position as a teacher to take advantage of her students.
The book is well written and the story is told very well. The content is just difficult. Please do not ignore the content warnings, especially if you or someone you are close to experienced grooming or sexual assault as a child.
~ SPOILERS~
The story was frustrating, because I so often found myself rooting for the MCs downfall and due to being a young, attractive, privileged, blonde woman, no one took the abuse of those boys seriously. I was hoping that at least one of the adults in these children’s lives would be their champion, but no one stepped up for these boys.And in the end, we see she is primed to strike again. Sick.
~ END OF SPOILER~
But this is such an accurate representation of how no one takes sexual violence against young boys seriously, especially at the hands of women, much less conventionally desirable women.
The book is well written and the story is told very well. The content is just difficult. Please do not ignore the content warnings, especially if you or someone you are close to experienced grooming or sexual assault as a child.
~ SPOILERS~
The story was frustrating, because I so often found myself rooting for the MCs downfall and due to being a young, attractive, privileged, blonde woman, no one took the abuse of those boys seriously. I was hoping that at least one of the adults in these children’s lives would be their champion, but no one stepped up for these boys.
~ END OF SPOILER~
But this is such an accurate representation of how no one takes sexual violence against young boys seriously, especially at the hands of women, much less conventionally desirable women.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual violence, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual content, Sexual assault, Adult/minor relationship, and Death of parent
Moderate: Stalking, Gaslighting, Violence, Mental illness, and Blood
Minor: Suicidal thoughts
motherxhorror's review against another edition
Easily the most disturbing book I have ever read.. Alissa Nutting really did a wonderful job at making me feel repulsed throughout the entire read -Very few books have made me feel physically ill so I have to give her credit where credit is due.
shanlyz's review against another edition
dark
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
Suddenly everyone’s eyes would widen, and they’d actually see me for the very first time: oh my God- you’re a soulless pervert!
Some student chasing me down wasn’t what I was after. What I needed, what I desperately hoped to find in Jack, was a student whom I could wear down. One who, even if he initially felt like running, would gradually slow his pace, and let me catch him.
Taking the small envelope out of my pocket and emptying it into Buck’s wineglass, I sloshed it around a few times until the powder fully dissolved.
“He seems totally dead.” Jack gave me an apprehensive smile that was only half joking. “We didn’t accidentally kill him, did we? I walked over to join Jack in peering down the wine-stained tunnel of Buck’s throat. “ I didn’t give him enough to kill him. Should I have?”
I was the one who first turned my face, thinking I’d heard a noise.
I knew I’d seen Buck’s figure moving away from the open door frame, in my mind was racing at a disoriented pace: I had to come up with a plan; seduction alone wouldn’t be able to bury what he’d just seen. Perhaps his pride was the best course of appeal? If he went to the police, and this was made public, all his neighbors and coworkers would know that he and his son had been sharing a lover. It was an angle I could take: he didn’t want the shame of it, didn’t want to put Jack through the embarrassment.
Ultimately saving his fathers life just wasn’t worth the risk-Buck’s stumpy hands were no place at all for my fate to rest. He was aware that I was choosing to let him die.
Buck Patrick had just suffered a heart attack.
Just to be sure I placed my foot gently against Buck’s neck to feel for a pulse. There was none. A flash of excited energy ran through me, as if I’d won the lottery-everything was going to be okay.
I paused, not wanting to be blatant, but I didn’t need to close the deal. “And you and I can stay together,” I whispered.
“We killed my dad,” he finally said.
“Absolutely not!” I exclaimed. What a counterproductive and harmful thought for him to have pressing my lips against his head is, though to beam the words directly into his skull, I tried to reassure him. “Jack,” I said, “a heart attack killed your dad. It’s tragic, but everything is going to be just fine.”
The nagging fear-largely paranoia, I tried to convince myself-that I needed to keep Jack fully under my spell just a bit longer, until it was certain that no aspect of his father’s death would be resurrected for examination by the police. As far as I knew, there’d been no suspicions at all.
But even summer break brought no great reversal to his sulking. Jack had to be replaced as soon as possible, but there were obstacles.
I kept butting heads with my worst fear, a prospect so extreme that I had an allowed myself to think it before the train wreck with Connor forced me to: the possibility that I might go the entire year without finding a replacement.
Who knows how long jack had been inside the darkened room, his eyes locked with Boyd’s.
With a guttural yell, he ran toward Boyd and threw him over, punching him.
I don’t believe Jack intended the full damage incurred by Boyd’s skull- it was partially the angles of geometry, partially the physics of force. The back left corner of Boyd’s head slammed into a sharp nightstand corner and produce a gash that began bleeding heavily in mere seconds.
Through a series of incoherent stammers, he’d begun leveling the allegation that I was not only responsible for his fathers needless death, but that my motivations were selfish ones. “You didn’t let him die so we could be together.” Jack’s hand made a broad, dragging wipe across his face, leaving a vertical smear of blood. “You’re cheating on me!”
“Jack,” I responded calmly. “I am sorry your father had a heart attack.” “All so nobody would find you out,” Jack interrupted.
Seconds later, Jack began to run.
I suppose I chased him. It wasn’t even until I was outside that I realized I had the knife in my hand; I must’ve picked it up in the kitchen on my way out.
When a figure approached from my left, blending into the shadows with the passive gait of an herbivore and carrying two grocery bags, it hardly registered; my peripheral vision initially classified the motion as a shrub moving in the breeze. When I did finally noticed her, we were face-to-face, her eyes squinting as she struggled to recognize me in such an unexpected context. “Celeste?” Mrs. Pancheko finally grasped, her for head, lifting into a growing tower of surprise that caused her hairline to disappear. It wasn’t Jack’s bloody handprints on my chest, or the knife in my hand that she noticed first at all. “You’re naked.”
“Were you attacked?” The old man asked. “Are you bleeding?” it was only then, looking down at the dried handprints Jack had left on my skin, that I thought of Boyd, his head wound hemorrhaging profusely just feet away inside the house. Was there anyway not to report his medical need that wouldn’t be judged harshly later when he was discovered?
“There’s a boy in the house who’s hurt,” I said, perhaps too quietly. Two police cars were turning down the street corner, approaching us.
I tried to survey the face of each officer stepping out of the cars- only after being sure that neither was Ford.
An immediate realization of loss begin to spread through me and quicken; as the knife was picked up and two officers branched off to run inside the house without my telling them about Boyd or instructing them on where to go, I realized perhaps the first person to call them had not been a neighbor at all but Jack.
“We’re going to need you to step inside the vehicle and come with us,” the officer said.
I kept my head low. If they knew who I was, they weren’t mentioning it yet; the entire ride to the station was silent and I tried to be thankful for these last moments of anonymity, even if they were pretended and more for the officers’ sense of comfort than my own.
But when the detectives entered holding Jack’s personal cell phone, the one whose spread-eagle photograph of me I hadn’t been able to find and delete on its SIM card, I knew I didn’t want Ford anywhere near the situation.
“We know you’re sleeping with these kids,” he began. “That’s a given. That’s not even up for debate. What I need to know from you is what you were doing running around the street naked with a knife while blood was gushing out of Boyd’s skull.”
“When Jack saw us together, he just went crazy. He attacked Boyd and all I could see was blood everywhere. Then Jack was gone. I knew I had to run for help, to get help for Boyd.”
“You weren’t running after Jack? According to Mr. Patrick, you were in pursuit of him with a knife. Thing is, I’ve got roughly 15 witnesses who saw you standing frozen in the street, looking around like you were trying to find somebody. You were crying out for help. But you did have a knife.”
Though the lawyer was a concession on behalf of Ford’s family- he’d represent me during the trial and also through a speedy divorce- he wasn’t free: I had to make a public apology that both glorified my husband and portrayed my grief and shame over hurting such a good man.
Having never planned on getting caught, I certainly hadn’t put much thought into the adultery clause of our prenuptial agreement. But I knew I didn’t have time to mourn financial affairs, more important was staying out of jail.
Boyd and Jack were still my favorite fantasies if only by aggregation- after all, I had them each so many times.
I have to reimagine history and tell myself that neither of them made it past the eve of my arrest alive: that Jack suffered a fatal wound at my hands in the woods, and Boyd, bleeding alone from the skull in Jack’s bedroom, succumbed to shock and died.
izzy_happyfornow's review against another edition
3.0
This is a hard one to rate. It was intriguing to read and root so much against an awful character.
Also to examine society's views on something like this when it happens.
The character is sick but Nutting brings something incredibly gross to life with some great writing.
Ending is meh.
Also to examine society's views on something like this when it happens.
The character is sick but Nutting brings something incredibly gross to life with some great writing.
Ending is meh.
anxiousmouse's review against another edition
dark
emotional
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
jakey2314's review against another edition
challenging
dark
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.0
I could have gotten past the subject matter of this book, I guess, but the writing wasn’t good, either. I was thinking this was going to be a story about how she fell in love with her student and then a relationship developed but it was so much worse. Straight up a pedophile. Selfish. Just trying to bang some 14 year olds.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Pedophilia
mccauleyauthor's review against another edition
2.0
I don't think I've ever felt so purely indifferent to a book than I did this one. Sincerely, I felt nothing. It wasn't necessarily boring, but not particularly engaging. Not bad, but certainly not great. Bold, but entirely one note.
lexiwelch's review against another edition
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75