{"id":2623,"date":"2025-04-22T13:32:00","date_gmt":"2025-04-22T13:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/?p=2623"},"modified":"2025-04-22T13:32:00","modified_gmt":"2025-04-22T13:32:00","slug":"book-review-american-lit-by-jennifer-greidus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/?p=2623","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: American Lit by Jennifer Greidus"},"content":{"rendered":"
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American Lit<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

by Jennifer Greidus<\/p>\n

Genre:<\/strong> Romance \/ LGBTQ<\/p>\n

ISBN: <\/strong>9798985034189<\/p>\n

Print Length:<\/strong> 254 pages<\/p>\n

Publisher: <\/strong>Querelle Press<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Reviewed by Victoria Lilly<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong>Equal parts erotic, dramatic, disturbing, and charming\u2014a coming of age story about escaping the spiral of self-destruction<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Ever since his father was killed in a robbery three years ago, Dan has been spiraling away from the outside world and away from his own injured and lonely self.\u00a0<\/p>\n

High on marijuana virtually all the time, he spends his days in a haze of TV, tennis, and casual sexual encounters\u2014in which he never gives, never kisses. His mother neglects him to an astonishing point, smothering her grief by a string of her own casual lovers. The only thing punctuating Dan\u2019s aimless and dull existence is his newfound obsession with his American Literature teacher, Mr. Stewart.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dan\u2019s half-baked plan to seduce his professor becomes diluted by the increasing presence in his life of his classmate Jesse. Jesse dates a friend of Dan\u2019s, deals their clique weed, and as their orbits align ever more closely, Dan becomes attracted to the shy, charming pothead.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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But Jesse isn\u2019t a one-night-stand kind of boy. Becoming entangled with him would force Dan to open himself up, be vulnerable. Compared to such a terror, the dangers of entering a sexual relationship with a man twenty years his senior seem like nothing at all. Of course, Dan\u2019s judgment turns out to be completely off-mark, and a violent spiral ensues.<\/p>\n

There is certainly much to praise in American Lit<\/em>. The novel shines most in the intimate, emotionally charged development of Dan and Jesse\u2019s relationship. Here the callous, selfish, distant part of Daniel\u2019s personality slips, more and more, to show a much more human, fragile, and caring boy. Jesse, too, comes into clear focus, shining among a crowd of drunk and drugged teenagers with his air of soft mystery.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI suppose I might be eye-catching, compared with Jesse, who\u2019s seemingly careless about his presentation. He has something though. A lot of unnamable something.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Another highlight is Daniel\u2019s initial catty game of seducing Mr. Stewart. The trope of a student trying to seduce their teacher is hardly new, but the stark contrast between the pair breathes enough freshness to make the dynamic compelling. Mr. Stewart is all self-control, pedantry, and stubborn coolness. Dan, meanwhile, is not only slovenly (if bright), but also a mess when it comes to his own motivations and feelings. I just wish Dan was eighteen instead of seventeen to remove that readerly discomfort of being underage.<\/p>\n

Daniel\u2019s tangled knot of emotions is partially unpacked over the course of the story, but some subtleties fall by the wayside because of the dynamics of the central love triangle. The supporting cast sometimes flash vividly with hints of greater depths, but they sometimes fall flat too. Lack of development of the protagonists\u2019 relationships with the secondary characters is most striking in Daniel\u2019s relationship with his mother. In contrast to the focus given to Dan\u2019s feelings about his dad\u2014and how this plays out in his affair with Mr. Stewart\u2014Daniel\u2019s mother is more of a phantom. Her absence from his life is the point, to be sure, but the narrative makes many starts in the direction of more concretely addressing and resolving this non-relationship but doesn\u2019t quite deliver on it.<\/p>\n

The erotic dimension of the book is all-pervasive and displayed in a great variety of forms and function. I don\u2019t mean simply the sex acts themselves, but how their idiosyncrasies say something about the characters. From Daniel\u2019s disinterested casual sex with nameless boys in nightclubs, to the increasingly violent encounters with Mr. Stewart, to the vulnerable and tender sex with Jesse, the author succeeds in wedding the erotic with the psychological and emotional.\u00a0<\/p>\n

American Lit<\/em> deftly paints the multifaceted nature of inequality, violence, ambiguity, and desire tied up in abusive relationships. The picture is made all the clearer when juxtaposed to the messy, yet human and equal, relationship between peers. It vividly captures the apathy of the suburban American teen experience and points to all the many pitfalls surrounding youths without healthy and supportive families. American Lit<\/em> is a hot, depressing, thrilling, and charming read all at once.<\/p>\n

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Thank you for reading Victoria Lilly\u2019s book review of American Lit <\/em>by Jennifer Greidus! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.<\/p>\n

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The post Book Review: American Lit by Jennifer Greidus<\/a> appeared first on Independent Book Review<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

American Lit by Jennifer Greidus Genre: Romance \/ LGBTQ ISBN: 9798985034189 Print Length: 254 pages Publisher: Querelle Press Amazon Bookshop Reviewed by Victoria Lilly Equal parts erotic, dramatic, disturbing, and charming\u2014a coming of age story about escaping the spiral of self-destruction Ever since his father was killed in a robbery three years ago, Dan has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":2624,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bookreviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2623"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2623\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}