New York : Atheneum Books for Young Readers, c2005.
165 p. ; 22 cm.
I nearly didn't post on this book, mainly because it's getting a bit old (2005), but it was such a powerful and tough little book that I had to write up a review. I've wanted to read the book since my son read it years ago, and I'm glad that I finally did. Inexcusable is the story of a date rape and is written from the point of view of Kier Sarafian, the perpetrator, who relentlessly tries to excuse and justify his deed. The book moves right along, and - with it's strong character development, nice sports angle, and dramatic relationship crises - should appeal to both young men and women.
The novel received a lot of praise when it came out, including being a National Book Award finalist. And after reading it, I can see why. The strength of Lynch's book, as pointed out by reviewers, is his ability to keep the book from being an easy "black and white" case of good guy / bad guy. Instead Lynch gives us a character study of the kind of "good guy" whose charm, recklessness, immaturity, arrogance and self-denial are, in fact, the very components of a self-centered and self-serving sexual user and potential rapist.
By telling the novel from the point of view of the accused, Lynch is able to explore the blurred morality of a perpetrator who refuses to accept that he has done anything wrong. In this way he is able to draw the reader into the same moral questions around consent, manipulation, and violation. Students who read it will have to wrestle with how reliable a narrator Kier is and just how much of a "good guy" is he. The book would be a great book for sparking discussions and would pair well with Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak.
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