Book Review: Inexcusable

Title Inexcusable
Author Chris Lynch
Genre YA, Literary Fiction
Rating C

Summary Keir Safarian may or may not have done something untoward with Gigi, the girl that he loves, on the night of his graduation from high school. Keir finds out that he may or may not be the guy that he thought he was.

First Line "The way it looks is not the way it is."

Review So, here’s the deal: I can’t review this book. It’s so weird because this book was a National Book Award Finalist (2005), which always makes me think that there should be something that knocks my socks off, but I was just so very ambivalent about this whole book.

The writing is interesting in its way, Lynch nails the high school voice to a tee, the dialogue and prose drive you forward, the plot “twist,” wasn’t really a twist, but you were still surprised at the end. And yet, I’m… hmm… empty.

I think part of the problem with my reticence about this book is that I’m not in the target demographic. I know this book should be good, see my earlier comment about NBA Finalist (not basketball, you dummy), but I found very little in it that I could get excited about. Does that make it a bad book? No. Can I think of anything that Lynch should have changed to make it better? Not really.

It just wasn’t the book for me. I’d probably recommend this book to high school guys (who probably are as equally self-deluded as Keir was), but seeing as how I have little to no interaction with high school guys caught in the throws of self-delusion, I’m just stuck with a technically-good book that’s not meaningful.

But I can admit when I'm lacking, so if there's anybody else out there who had their socks knocked off by this or knows of somebody who's life was impacted, please drop a comment. I want to find a reason to like this book.