I Read this Y.A. Fiction book review ‘cause Justin Torres.

The following makes an interesting appeal for the edgy premise (it’s a shame that the overall takeaway is that the book doesn’t fully deliver on a Real level):

Cole is a pushy lover, and not very considerate as the beloved either, a fact that will come back to haunt him when at last it is his turn to fall for someone. That someone — the object of the real love story here, which takes up two-thirds of the book — is Grisaille. She is foreign (read: exotic), sexually advanced and adventurous (exotic again) and much too free for Cole to pin down. The tidy morality of the novel has it that Cole, notorious for leaving girls deeply enchanted with him, is hurt by a young woman even more interested in the fulfillment of her own desire. The message is simple: Go ahead and experiment, but be careful with your heart, and above all, be considerate with the hearts of others.

This is a very good message. In fact the book is full of helpful suggestions, and seems most successful if conceived of less as a novel than as a chatty instructional manual for the horny teenage boy: how to make use of your tool without becoming one.