A review by itadakinasu
Unteachable by Elliot Wake

2.0

“You asked why I’m here alone.” I glanced over at him. He stared straight ahead. “I see the lights every night. It seems like the whole world has figured out how to be happy, but no one’s letting me in on the secret.” There are moments, when you’re getting to know someone, when you realize something deep and buried in you is deep and buried in them, too. It feels like meeting a stranger you’ve known your whole life.

Unteachable reads like a slightly more mature Jaden Smith.

It's filled with unnecessary, over-the-top descriptions and childish attempts at depth that sound like real Jaden Smith-isms. It walks the line between cringe and an actual, meaningful message. It plays with social taboos and tries to portray them in a multi-faceted way, but it only hits the mark about 60% of the time.

If it's not clear already, I didn't like Unteachable.

I stood at my locker as kids milled around me and felt like I was on a movie set, surrounded by extras. Their lives were so small, so simple. So scripted. No one had a secret life like this. No one was texting the teacher they’d fucked, the teacher they were planning to fuck again.

Maise is not a likable character. She's bitter and self-destructive. She simultaneously wants people to treat her as an adult while falling back on her age every time she does something wrong. Being young is a valid reason to make dumb choices and have extreme emotional outbursts, but isn't a reason to use people or to continue making dumb choices. She has a superiority complex while managing to be insecure. She's basically a hot mess of contradictions that never really sorts itself out, and worst of all, she's not like everyone else.

Some reviewers say that Wake did a good job capturing the depth of her trauma. I can agree with that. But there's danger in romanticizing this kind of relationship when he uses Maise's past as an excuse to make this unhealthy dynamic palatable. It's dangerous when Maise's behavior is justified in every situation, when everyone accepts her fucked up actions or apologizes to her when she is the one who should be apologizing.

Spoiler

Such as Wesley apologizing for daring to have a crush on her, or for trying to protect her. Or for Evan's friend who helps Evan secretly bring his student to his flat to fuck her every weekend, and who helps Evan make himself into the victim of his own stupid actions.

Ultimately Maise's character developed from one unlikable extreme to another, and the ending was just gag-worthy.

Evan is made out to be this young-at-heart, adventurous, and progressive guy who loves Maise for who she is. He plays childish games with Maise in public (cringe) and quotes movies for her, he cries watching Casablanca and wants to get to know her after sex (not just pump and dump), which is clearly an attempt to show that Evan is not like other men his age.

Spoiler

Let's just ignore the fact that he was in trouble for not only banging another underage student at a previous job, but he got her pregnant! And then he played the victim, claiming that the student was ruining his life. The gall of this book!

There's a reason that relationships between students and teachers is taboo, and there's a reason why most of society cringes at the thought of an adult hanging around teenagers, much less getting into romantic relationships with them. There's a reason that things like power imbalances are considered a major red flag. Wake tries to address these issues by having Maise pay her own way when she goes out. Wake has Maise lie about her age to justify the continuation of their relationship after Evan finds out that he's her teacher

Spoiler

even though Evan himself says that he likes fucking his student and finds it hot.

. I can only call these attempts pathetic and ultimately hugely missing the point.

I appreciate that Wake tried to tackle issues like taboos, neglect, sexuality, and power imbalances. However, I don't think that he handled these issues well in Unteachable. Instead of coming away with any real message, I felt that he wanted to excuse all of the unhealthy shit going on here and explain away sleeping with your teacher (or anyone in a position of power over you) as long as the sex is good and they cook you breakfast after.

If your fetish is fucking your teacher/student or you want to read about a dark and sexual relationship, then by all means go read Unteachable.