my Boy Toy review

Boy Toy by Barry Lyga

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


This was probably one of the most disgusting books I've ever read. Keep in mind, I like Barry Lyga. The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl was really awesome. Goth Girl Rising wasn't my cup of tea, but I figured that bad weighed the good and all was well, still. But this? Just disgusting.

Not really in a bad way, either. Well, actually, yes, in a bad way. Okay, you're probably saying "Jesus Lady, you're reading a book about child molestation and you want bubblegum and flowers?", but that isn't what I mean. I know a topic like this is bound to be unsettling. I mean, it's disgusting in the way that Barry played it out.

The scenes are written as seduction scenes...never once does Josh feel fear or shock...okay he feels a lot of shock, but the "OH WOW! My smexy teach loves me!" shock, and not the "OH WOW! My smexy twenty year old teach is telling me she loves me and...wait...what just happened? I'm only twelve, am I really ready for sex? Why is she pushing this on me? What am I doing?" sort of shock. It's really disgusting how voyeuristic and fetishy these scenes were.

Josh has flashes. Flashes are were, in the middle of a page, we get something like this,

-(insert disturbing line
(insert VERY disturbing line)-

which is going to occur, I get that. After all, Josh is tramatized and all. But the WAY we get these scenes and HOW he reacts make me furious. It's like, we're hardly taking this seriously. Most of the action we get in flashbacks between him and Eve is supposed to be sexy, not horrifying. Personally, a twenty something getting it on with her twelve year old student is NOT a turn on for me. It shouldn't really be one for anyone, but if it is maybe you should seek help. That's why I really did not appreciate the over sexualizing of those scenes.

I get it, Josh is a twelve year old boy, and, apparently, twelve year old boys are always thinking about that. But that doesn't warrant what I just mentioned at all.

Also? Barry Lyga is a questionably misogynistic. All of his women are (to quote someone) "Wish Fulfillment of Male Fantasies" (WFMF for short). Michelle is just "hot". She's shown being literally obsessed with sex. Her and Zik are not particularly quiet about which base they get to, she's always wearing revealing clothes and either winking or smirking at someone who looks at her.

Rachel is just "cute". She's flat chested, wears jeans and baseball caps, has freckles, spits, curses, plays baseball, and is Josh's intended love interest.

Eve is "bad sexy". Well, I don't really need to describe her. She's type-A hot teacher, with added on child molestation.

Other than that? Well, we have his mother, but she's only in a subplot which I will state later. But other than her? No, we have no other major female character. We just have those three. Good sexy, cute, and bad sexy. They aren't real characters I really don't know anything about them. It's annoying. REALLY annoying.

Barry Lyga's not a woman-hater, but he just doesn't like building up his female characters very much. Short of Goth Girl from Fanboy and Gothgirl, I haven't read any female characters of his I've liked, and I even started to dislike Goth Girl after reading a whole novel from her POV.

Moving on, we have the incident with Rachel. It wasn't his fault, sure. He shouldn't trash himself so much over it, sure. But he did rip off her underwear, and he did plan on going that far with her like "Eve taught him". It really disgusted me that not only did Rachel say she "would have gone that far if [he'd] gone about it differently", but also that she had been wanting to date him directly afterwards! I don't know about you, [you the reader, yes, but not directly "you"], but I would not be running after a guy after having my underwear ripped off in a closet, when it was only Seven Minutes in heaven. You do not have sex in that game, you kiss, if I am not mistaken.

My point? Josh was out of line, and he should not have been encouraged and even pushed forward to that behavior even if Eve was messing around with him. He needs to know that that is NOT okay. Granted, he did know during the events of the book, but still -- I doubt anybody in Rachel's position would act the way she did, which leads back to the WFMF.

Moving on (again), we have the baseball terminology. Now I know it's a book about baseball, but Barry Lyga assumes anyone that picks it up will be a baseball fan. More than half of everything that came out of that kid's mouth about baseball went right up over my head. I know nothing about baseball. The average person will probably know a little more than me, but certainly not even half as much as what Josh was talking about. I was so confused, I was confused about how much I was confused. It was pathetic and sad. If you're going to make something like a sport a main focus of your work, you need to explain what you're talking about, I mean at least enough so someone can know something about what's going on. That's just common courtesy.

Lastly, the thing that probably pissed me off the most about this whole goshdarned book, Josh's mother's subplot.

Josh's mother is an idiot. I mean, she leaves Josh with Eve TIME AND TIME AND TIME again, hours at a time, week after week after month after month without so much as questioning what the hell she wants so badly with a twelve year old boy all of the goddamned time, and this goes on for months for chrissakes. She does all of this because she wants to keep a job she apparently wants. She is an idiot, I repeat. But still, quote time:

"I love her, Mom." I said it quietly, with all the seriousness I could muster. It was the biggest, most important thing I'd ever said in my entire life.

And mom laughed.

It wasn't an amused laugh. It wasn't the sort of laugh you'd hear at the movies or in front of the TV or during a family reunion. It was harsh, hard-edged, more a snort than actual laughter.

"Don't be stupid," she said with contempt. That contempt shocked me -- my mom had been angry at me in the past, but never hateful. "You're a child. You don't know what it means to be in love."

Considering he is talking about being in love with Eve, you can really, honestly see her perspective here. She is saying that he is a child. She is saying that he can't know what it means to be in love, especially considering that he's claiming to love a woman that manipulated him into thinking he was in love with her. But later, guess what we find out?

Oh yeah, she was really full of shit and cheating on Josh's dad the whole time, so not only is her opinion considered invalid by Josh, although he really DIDN'T love Eve, but we're also supposed to consider her a two faced bitch. I don't think so.

Another point about his mother? Why can't she have a job AND take care of her kid? Of course, she needs to leave all that working and stuff to her MAHN, and she needs to stop worrying about actually having a job. She needs to be home and just do the laundry and make dinner. I don't appreciate that. I don't appreciate that at all.

I think that the whole situation with Eve was wrapped up and even played out horribly. It was frankly, revolting to me. He never really did get that he wasn't in love with Eve. He just got that it wasn't his fault, which is okay and all, but for the love of God can't we have it both ways?

Considering that my novel (does not focus on, but) does feature such manipulation (but not in THAT way, and for petes sake we are NOT getting such indepth and mortifying descriptions, and Jesus it is NOT SUPPOSED TO BE SEXY!) it is good that I read this book -- if not to learn to write like it, to take an example for what is good and not good and to help me. Also, since this is one of the only books of it's subject matter around, I'm grateful it was written, but I wish it was less...well, everything I mentioned above.

I hope I'm not being too judgmental or bias, but that's how I felt.

(Also, did it have to be so...descriptive? I'm sure we could have lost at least half of the Eve/Josh Sexytime scenes. That was truly horrifying.)