Sexy - Hardcover

Oates, Joyce Carol

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060541504 ISBN 13: 9780060541507

Publisher: HarperTeen, 2005

Synopsis

It was in November, a Thursday after swim practice. The thing with Mr. Tracy, Darren's English teacher.
The thing was how Darren would think of it, afterward.
The thing that was vague and not-named.
The thing that hadn’t happened, anyway.

Darren Flynn has the perfect life -- until that day in November.

After that day, after what happened (did it happen?), life is different. Darren is different. Nothing is as it was –– before. His friends, his family, even the people who are supposed to be in charge are no longer who Darren thought they were. Who can he trust, now?

This compelling, masterfully written novel by acclaimed author Joyce Carol Oates explores one teenager's search for identity in a complex, deceiving world, and the answers he finds in the most unexpected places.

About this title

About the Author:

Joyce Carol Oates is a recipient of the National Medal of Humanities, the National Book Critics Circle Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, the National Book Award, and the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction, and has been several times nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. She has written some of the most enduring fiction of our time, including the national bestsellers We Were the Mulvaneys, Blonde, which was nominated for the National Book Award, and the New York Times bestseller The Falls, which won the 2005 Prix Femina. Her most recent novel is A Book of American Martyrs. She is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Princeton University and has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 1978.

From School Library Journal:

Grade 9 Up–Oates has produced another novel with a compelling story line and a complex protagonist. Darren Flynn is incredibly good-looking, but isn't quite sure how to handle all the admiring attention he receives from females and males alike. In addition, his teachers and swimming coach remark consistently on his untapped potential and the way he holds himself back both in the pool and in his writing, and Darren knows this to be true. The teen's hardscrabble rural New England lifestyle is juxtaposed with the professional, well-off families of his friends. As in Big Mouth and Ugly Girl (HarperCollins, 2002), Oates takes an ambiguous and uncomfortable incident with a male teacher and allows the story to unravel through rumor and innuendo into a horrible climax. Here, a retaliatory attack on the man's character by some disgruntled students careens out of control and has deadly consequences. The characters of family and friends are well drawn but the star is the protagonist, and Darren's authenticity shines through. The male-centered, first-person narrative and athletic allusions make this novel appealing to reluctant male readers. This is sure to be a popular title and is great for sparking discussion, even though the explicit language and subject matter may be problematic in some schools.–Courtney Lewis, Wyoming Seminary College Preparatory School, Kingston, PA
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About this edition

• Publisher: HarperTeen
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0060541504
• ISBN 13: 9780060541507
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 272