Always Forever Maybe
By Anica Mrose Rissi
Review by Christian Perring on Tue, Oct 2nd 2018. |  | This YA novel is about a girl being physically abused by her boyfriend, and how she gets sucked into believing it is her fault. Not only that, but Betts also blows off her best friend Jo because she wants to be with Aiden. There's a real challenge in getting the right balance in narration, since Betts, who tells her own story, has to be a sympathetic character, but also in some ways has to be seen to lack judgment or lose control of her own actions. She is a high school senior and Aiden is older than her, so she is soon on her way to college. Indeed, she is going to a highly rated school, so s
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Untrue
Why Nearly Everything We Believe About Women, Lust, and Infidelity Is Wrong and How the New Science Can Set Us Free
By Wednesday Martin
Review by Christian Perring on Tue, Sep 25th 2018. | We are familiar with the high rate of infidelity in the US, and it's easy to understand it using the stereotype of men wanting sex and women wanting security and intimacy. Wednesday Martin argues against this stereotype, arguing that females in many primate species are motivated to engage in sex outside their main relationships for a variety of reasons. In this wide-ranging book she explores female initiation and engagement in infidelity, extra-marital sex, multiple partners, polyamory, and other forms of women's pursuing non-traditional relationships. She is not necessarily a proponent of alt
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The Dangerous Art of Blending In
By Angelo Surmelis
Review by Christian Perring on Tue, Jul 31st 2018. |  | Evan Panos is a high school senior at the start of the school year. He has several secrets. One is that he is gay. He has not come out to his family or his friends, but his mother suspects. She is so worried that she sent him to Christian camp during the summer, to put him back on the straight and narrow. But he met another boy there who he liked, and they kissed. He hasn't told his best friend Henry about this, and the two of them don't face up to the attraction between them. Evan also lies to his friends about the source of the many bruises and injuries he has. He says that he is just clumsy
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The Evolution of Beauty
How Darwin's Forgotten Theory of Mate Choice Shapes the Animal World - and Us
By Richard O. Prum
Review by Joseph Kranak on Tue, Jul 10th 2018. | The main question that Prum seeks to answer in The Evolution of Beauty is what drives the process of sexual selection. Evolution among animals is driven both by what animals manage to survive and who manage to have children and grandchildren. The latter usually translates into males fiercely competing for access to females, both through physical conflict between males and males competing to attract choosy females with ornamentation and courtship rituals. Prum, an ornithologist, is most interested in the latter, which is highly pronounced among numerous species of birds, where only a small perc
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Getting Off
One Woman's Journey Through Sex and Porn Addiction
By Erica Garza
Review by Christian Perring on Tue, Jul 3rd 2018. |  | In her memoir of her life, Erica Garza portrays herself as a sexual addict. This is a difficult task to attempt since many readers will be suspicious that sex and porn can be genuinely addictive. However, the greater problem for Garza is her interpretation of herself as being unhappy. One might think that one can at least know if one is happy or unhappy, but Getting Off presents a case of someone who seems to have plenty of success, plenty of friends, family harmony, and no material struggles. She certainly has a lot of sex and uses a lot of porn to masturbate with, and through her teen years
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The Pervert
By Michelle Perez
Review by Christian Perring on Tue, Jun 26th 2018. | The description of this graphic novel on the publisher web site explains that it is about a trans sex worker in Seattle. Some parts of this are more obscure than others when reading it. There is not much clue the story is set in Seattle, and it takes a little working out that the main character is a trans woman, at least until we see her naked. This is a melancholy narrative gives people dog and cat faces, which makes them look sad but pretty hard to read apart from that. The narrator, who is the main character, leads a brutal life trading sex for life, getting harassed and experiencing
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Not My Shame
By T.O. Walker
Review by Christian Perring on Tue, Mar 27th 2018. |  | This short monochrome graphic novel doesn't so much tell a story as explore themes about the effects of sexual abuse of young people. Most pages are split into 4 panels, and have rather crudely drawn pictures showing a haunted child and abusive or passive adults. There is writing too, expressing anger at parents and authorities who just allow abusers to do what they want. There are also images of self-harm and bottles of alcohol, with some words about the need to escape. Nearer the end of the book there are some statistics about the prevalence of sexual abuse and the low rates of r
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What Does Consent Really Mean?
By Pete Wallis and Thalia Walllis
Review by Christian Perring on Tue, Mar 20th 2018. | This short graphic novel has teens talking with each other about consent to sex. They voice a number of different views but soon come to the idea that consent should be clear and enthusiastic. They acknowledge that talking about sex can be awkward and difficult, but they come to the conclusion that if the consent isn't clearly voiced, then it isn't really consent. The characters are diverse, including boys and girls, black, white Muslim, and different levels of sexual experience. They talk about the pressures on girls to go along with what their boyfriends want, but they also talk about the pr
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