Boy Toy

Josh Mendel has a secret that he wishes to never say aloud again. Unfortunately he doesn't have to, for the whole town knows already.

Boy Toy by Barry Lyga, takes on a whole new level of lust for the student. The book is played out in two parts, Josh as a senior and Josh when he was twelve. Senior Josh deals with the struggles of any normal senior: college, his baseball career and his parents ongoing fighting. And something else. The return of Eve and Rachel.

Eve, Mrs. Sherman. The woman who changed his life is now out of jail. His parents try to keep it from him, but everyone knows. Though his name wasn't in the paper, everyone knows he was the kid who got molested by the new teacher. Rachel, the girl he almost raped when he was thirteen is back too, wanted desperately to rekindle the Four Musketeer relationship they had before the "party". But he can't do it. Josh can't try to be close to her, he remembers all that Eve taught him. His flickers (random memory spasms) of Eve throughout the book basically justify his resistance to get close to anyone. He wants to react in the way he thinks they want him to react:

-touch-

Slowly but surely Josh tells Rachel everything that happened, between Eve and the movie, to doing things at her house, Christmas break, Rachel's party, getting caught, and the trial where he plead the fifth. As the book goes on, Josh learns that Eve can no longer hold a burden to him, his flickers can't control his life and Rachel may actually be someone to keep around.

I give this book a 5/5 rating. Boy Toy is briefly comical, disturbing, passionate and definitely unsettling. I think everyone - over a certain age - should read this book. It gave me a good insight on how it's like to be molested and not know you were.