Helpful Score: 5
This book didn't have much of a real plotline except for graphio obscene sex. It was disturbing. It's hard to believe trashy, low class people like this really exist. The only moment of relief comes when Vangie FINALLY leaves her dirtbag boyfriend.
Helpful Score: 4
Coming-of-age story with raw sex, betrayal, and friendship. I repeat RAW SEX. A good and easy read. In the end, it was very poignant and I liked it a lot.
Helpful Score: 2
This is a great book, although its very sexually explicit. It doesn't bother me, but it might bother some people. It was a fast read.
Helpful Score: 2
There is a lot of sex in this book...a lot. BUT, the story was actually very interesting, albeit strange. I read it in one sitting.
Helpful Score: 2
I started reading this book the day I got it, & finished the exact same day..it was hard to put down. Good book & easy read!!!
Helpful Score: 1
Rather graphic, borderline x-rated almost but written well and quick reading. This does have a reading group guide at the end of it so it's not trashy but makes you think.
Helpful Score: 1
I read a few pages of this book and felt like I needed a shower. Passing it along.
Helpful Score: 1
This is such a sexy, raw read!! Great!
Helpful Score: 1
Coming of age story about what all teens experience growing up...drugs, sex and broken families. I read this in 2 days...a real page-turner!
Helpful Score: 1
Even though the language is a bit harsh, it was awesome!
Helpful Score: 1
This really captures the confusion and angst of young adulthood--not to mention the raging hormones-- from the vantage point of a small-town girl living a dead-end life. Graphic sex, but so well-written.
Helpful Score: 1
Wow! A very sexually explicit novel that is seductive and absorbing. Well worth the read.
From the back of the book:
The graphic sex is neither porn nor arty erotica: it's anthropology with a heart.
"Here is what they never tell you about being a girl."
From the back of the book:
The graphic sex is neither porn nor arty erotica: it's anthropology with a heart.
"Here is what they never tell you about being a girl."
Helpful Score: 1
Warning - this book is very sexually explicit. Although the author has a nice writing style, I have to admit I got bored after a while with the sexual descriptions - who had sex, where they had sex, why they had sex, when they had sex and how they had sex, ad nauseum. Maybe I'm just getting old, but I don't remember being this obsessed about the sexual act when I was eighteen (or any age, for that matter). I can't really recommend it, although I would probably read another book by Maureen Gibbons to see if she improves on her story-telling skills.
Warning-this book has some pretty explicit scenes. It's a bit of train wreck-rough and upsetting but I couldn't put it down.
i'm not sure yet if i liked it or not. nice and fast read. but i just don't know if i liked it. no real storyline; yes there is lots of graphic sex. but even that was pretty dull. its not what i expected.
From Publishers Weekly
Evangeline Starr Raybuck is the young heroine who wades through the quagmire of a brutal, intense sexual coming of age in Gibbon's first novel, a catalogue of vice and neglect in rural Pennsylvania told in straightforward, sometimes graphic prose. Now that high school is over for "Vangie" and her friends, they turn from carelessness to recklessness, taking their drinking, drugs and sex to new extremes. Vangie is in love with Del Pardee, and her best friend, June Keel, is paired off with Ray Sparrow, but the foursome isn't as stable as they believe, and their relationships quickly grow complicated, jealous and violent. June lives with Ray and his brother Luke. Despite Ray's devotion, June falls for Luke, and then is too scared, na?ve and attached to hurt her boyfriend with the truth. Though Vangie sees devastation ahead for June, she only narrowly escapes disaster herself when she risks her relationship with Del to satisfy her curiosity with his brother Frank, and with June's brother Kevin, both cruel and violent sex partners. After Del's drug overdose lands him in detox, and June, in a moment of heavy-handed foreshadowing, reveals a loaded gun above Luke's bed, Vangie begins to take stock of her decisions. Until this point, Gibbon focuses on the reflexive way Vangie uses sex: to get love, pleasure, revenge, adventure, pain or money; most of this sex uses up Vangie instead. Gibbon's frank and repetitious renderings of these acts dominate the novel, sacrificing character development so that when the inevitable debacle occurs, Vangie's bid for a better life seems faraway and incomprehensible. The young woman ostensibly emerges with new direction and insight, but the inconsistency of her strength and the passive hopelessness of her existence thus far leave the reader unconvinced. (May)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. -
Evangeline Starr Raybuck is the young heroine who wades through the quagmire of a brutal, intense sexual coming of age in Gibbon's first novel, a catalogue of vice and neglect in rural Pennsylvania told in straightforward, sometimes graphic prose. Now that high school is over for "Vangie" and her friends, they turn from carelessness to recklessness, taking their drinking, drugs and sex to new extremes. Vangie is in love with Del Pardee, and her best friend, June Keel, is paired off with Ray Sparrow, but the foursome isn't as stable as they believe, and their relationships quickly grow complicated, jealous and violent. June lives with Ray and his brother Luke. Despite Ray's devotion, June falls for Luke, and then is too scared, na?ve and attached to hurt her boyfriend with the truth. Though Vangie sees devastation ahead for June, she only narrowly escapes disaster herself when she risks her relationship with Del to satisfy her curiosity with his brother Frank, and with June's brother Kevin, both cruel and violent sex partners. After Del's drug overdose lands him in detox, and June, in a moment of heavy-handed foreshadowing, reveals a loaded gun above Luke's bed, Vangie begins to take stock of her decisions. Until this point, Gibbon focuses on the reflexive way Vangie uses sex: to get love, pleasure, revenge, adventure, pain or money; most of this sex uses up Vangie instead. Gibbon's frank and repetitious renderings of these acts dominate the novel, sacrificing character development so that when the inevitable debacle occurs, Vangie's bid for a better life seems faraway and incomprehensible. The young woman ostensibly emerges with new direction and insight, but the inconsistency of her strength and the passive hopelessness of her existence thus far leave the reader unconvinced. (May)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. -
I saw reviews that said this book had a lot of sex narrative in it - definitely not your mothers harlequin Romance novels!! I started it today i will most likely finish it tomorrow.
