"Sex and Violence" By Carrie Mesrobian (306 pages)

For seventeen-year-old Evan Carter, sex has always come without consequences. His strategy? Know the profile of The Girl Who Would Say Yes. In each new town, each new school, he can count on plenty of action before he and his father move again. Finding girls is not a problem for Evan, and soon it is what he does best. Until he hooks up with the wrong girl and finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. The girl’s name is Collette, and Evan can’t stay away from her, even though he knows his private school roommate had once dated her. He knows it’s wrong but he can’t help himself. One night, Evan and Collette are seen together and word gets back to his roommate. Evan goes to take a shower that night, only two find two angry guys waiting for him, one of them being Patrick- Collette’s ex-boyfriend. What happen next, Evan isn’t sure, but he wakes up in the hospital without a spleen. His body is completely destroyed, but he soon learns that Collette got the worst of their wrath. Evan’s father knows they cannot stay in that town anymore, and he takes him to the family cabin in rural Pearl Lake, Minnesota, so Evan's body can heal. But what about his mind?

 

How do you go on when you can’t think of sex without thinking about violence?

 

Nothing seems natural to Evan anymore. Nothing seems safe. The fear and the guilt haunt him every day. He can't sort out how he feels about anyone, least of all himself. Evan has really never known everything about someone, and Pearl Lake is the kind of place where people know everything about each other. At first, Evan is annoyed and is sure Pearl Lake is not the place for him. However, as uncomfortable as he is, it might also be Evan's best shot to untangle sex and violence. I loved this book but i definitely think it is for more mature readers, not because of the reading level but because of the context.