It was such a great book, I don't think a contemporary book has left me with this much emotion in a while. It's more than meets the eye, and worth picking up and binge reading.

I am unable to review this due to being mistaken on what the book was about and accidentally downloading it when I thought it was something else.

The Temptation of Adam by Dave Connis follows a boy named Adam who’s addicted to porn. He denies his addiction, but once it gets him into trouble at school, he’s forced to confront his actions by attending AA meetings.
When I read the synopsis of this book, I knew I wanted to read it. Imagine my excitement after finding it on NetGalley. Now, I did enjoy reading it, but it fell a little flat. I gave 3/5 stars.
The reason this book fell short had nothing to do with it being bad by any means. It just failed to grasp me the way it should have. I couldn’t connect with the characters or the story. I feel like this could’ve been improved if more was happening and more time was spent with the characters.
This book does contain swearing and brief discussions surrounding porn, sex, drugs, alcohol, and death, so keep that in mind before picking it up.
Despite the flaws I just mentioned, this book had its redeeming qualities. It was worth the read for me. I had a good time reading it. It was easy to read. I didn’t have to go back and reread any sections to understand it. And it discussed topics that aren’t normally seen in YA.
I would recommend this book to fans of JD Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye and fans of John Green’s Looking for Alaska.

Special thanks to NetGalley for sending this book my way.

I really enjoyed this book. This is a serious issue today and I feel like the author handled everything extremely well!

3.5 stars

Adam Hawthorne has a porn addiction, and things aren't so hot for him right now. His dad is more absorbed in getting his mom back than he is taking care of his son and his sister abandoned him to live with his mom in LA.
Someone discovers his addiction, and he's forced to join the Knights of Vice support group, and the people there start to slip through his defenses, especially one girl who's beginning to unravel him. 

Now Adam has to face the causes and effects of his addiction, before he loses his new friends, his prodigal sister, and his almost semi-sort-of girlfriend.

Although this book is on the lower end of 200-something pages, it felt a lot longer. This wasn't necessarily a good or bad thing because there were parts I did and didn't like.

The Temptation of Adam is a novel about addiction and finding yourself--what are you? You read about the journey of the protagonist Adam.

I think there were a lot of valuable messages in this book and it made me think a lot about what defines me and who we are. I don't think I'll stop thinking about this for a few days, and I liked how this had a meaningful impact on me.

But the plot just felt kind of chaotic to me at times. In retrospect, it seemed structured very much like a contemporary, but as I read it, it kind of felt all over the place because sometimes he was happy and other times he itched to watch porn and other times he was something else. With this, the pacing jumped from slower at times to almost frantic at others.

It was kind of a maintained mess, and I can definitely see how it added to the narrative of Adam's struggles, but it made me stressed at times as I read it.

The characters were a diverse set of people with multiple types of struggles. The female main character is Dez, and she's addicted to addiction and cycles though different things every so often.

Both Adam and his love interest Dez were developed well into complex characters, but I did feel like some of the other Knights of Vice and characters could have been developed further. Most of them affected Adam's dynamic and his character growth greatly throughout the novel, but I felt like we could have learned more about their own struggles as they don't seem to struggle as much as some of the other people did.

I did enjoy reading this book in the times when I wasn't stressed--there were cute quirks to the narrative like how Adam made mental equations about life.

I definitely think some people will really love this book as it is a realistic display of addiction. Although I had a hard time relating to it, I think it could have a very profound effect on other people.

The links will go live on the 19th of November!

I appreciate the fact that the author attempted to write a story surrounding the topic of addiction particularly porn addiction. This is not a topic that I have seen done in the YA world and I was interested to see what direction the author would take it in. I would like to see this topic and other difficult topics like it written about in Young Adult books because it is something that some of them struggle with. It felt like the author beat around the bush with the topic at hand which was addiction to porn. I think that is why this book just didn't work for me. Addiction isn't something that you can pussy foot around and expect readers to take something away from it. I'm not saying that I wanted descriptions of what Adam was watching in detail but it would have been nice if the author would have went deeper other than feeling guilty that it happened again.
I wish that I would have been able to feel the struggle within Adam more so throughout the story. He was a bit of a meh character for me. He seemed to be in denial about a lot of things for the majority of the book. I also didn't like the relationship between him and Dez. I felt that it was toxic for him and I wanted him to kick her to the curb. The only character that I can say that I liked was Mr. Cratcher. He was caring and straightforward about his own flaws. He genuinely wanted to help others especially Adam.
I wanted the story to focus on Adam and what he was going through but it focused quite a bit on the backstory of Cratcher as well as other characters and their issues (Dez). I liked Cratcher but the book was supposed to be about Adam and I wasn't sure why the author took that direction. It didn't seem like anything was really resolved with the characters in the end with the exception of Cratcher. It felt like the author was forcing conclusions for each of them in such a way that it didn't feel realistic but rather rushed instead. I think the book was trying too hard to be different by adding certain elements like Adam's formulas and the pixie manic dream girl crap (Dez). I know that I have been beating the author up about her but she annoyed me with her "I'm so unique" and "I don't really have ONE problem like the rest of you".

Trigger warning: destructive behavior mentions including alcoholism and self harm; also, I talk about the main character’s comments about such behavior in the course of the story in this review.

I want to preface my review of The Temptation of Adam by saying that it’s a difficult subject to tackle. Addiction is a deeply personal and variable subject, so I tried to comment on the portrayal within this book and my opinion of that portrayal respectfully. If I have inadvertently offended anyone, I most humbly apologize.

I can’t remember reading many books that deal with addiction any kind. Growing up, I think the closest ones were some Ellen Hopkins or Go Ask Alice types. Fine enough in their own right, but limited. Seeing The Temptation of Adam as a relevant title to this age of consumption, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at what Dave Connis’s portrayal would be.

His portrayal of addiction, at least from my experience, had authenticity. The denial of a problem, the rejection of fault, can definitely be felt within Adam’s situation. It was a hard read sometimes because even knowing Adam had an addiction and we’re viewing the people around him through his scope, and even though I really didn’t like Adam as a person addiction or no, it was at times easy to side with him. That maybe he was being put upon by Mr. Cratcher or his dad. That balance in the writing was a shock at times when I realized what was taking place.

There were a few things that I had issues with that made this a difficult book to like, aside from the subject matter. Two of these are Adam’s indelicacy and his personal relationship with Dez.

When first meeting the Knights of Vice, Mr. Cratcher’s support group, he makes callous and inaccurate remarks about one of the members, Elliot’s, addiction to self harm, which “he saw coming with the hair”. He also calls it strange that Elliot cuts “because guys don’t cut”. I want to believe that Adam was uninformed about the subject and the author chose to portray that, albeit poorly in my opinion, but nonetheless, that passage struck me as one to look out for because it felt wrong. It didn’t feel like part of his defense of not having an addiction, his opinion that he was better than everyone there because he had his porn consumption under control. It felt extra and bad.

The relationship aspect between Adam and Dez in this book felt weird for a couple of reasons. First of which is that Adam (and I’m only mentioning him because he’s our primary window into the story) shouldn’t be focusing on that kind of thing right now when dealing with his addiction, especially a porn addiction.

Second, his choice of girlfriend. Dez is a somewhat interesting character: bold, unafraid of speaking her mind and confront Adam on his suppositions and what she calls his delusions of gender, but she’s in treatment too. Two addicts forming a relationship, an intense romantic one at that, when they’re supposed to be figuring out their own core, was more than a little troubling.

I also wasn’t comfortable with Adam’s sudden turn around and motivation for realizing he has a problem and wanting to quit his pornography addiction. It’s somewhat spoilery so I’ll just say that it felt inauthentic to the character in general and as a whole flat. I’m not saying that in real life it’s 100% impossible, but as it happened in Adam’s situation, it wasn’t believable with who Adam was as a person, so it made his journey toward redemption weak.

There was a lot of intense stuff going on in this book for a lot of people. Adam wasn’t the only one dealing with an addiction that we got to know, just the one we spent the most time seeing through. As such, I would have liked to see a better story for him. As it was, I don’t think the way his was told really worked. There were issues with his character and with his journey and there was so much potential, so much room for growth, that the climax, falling action, and “resolution” was unfulfilling.

I am reviewing The Temptation of Adam by Dave Connis. I received a free digital copy of it from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Any quotes that may appear below are from the text and are not my words.

We all have vices. It is part of being human. Anyone that claims to not have a vice of some form is a liar or is completely delusional. This book takes a good look at vices and how they can control people. Some vices even destroy your life. In Adam's case, they can get you thrown out of school and forced into therapy.

I am rating this book Three Stars because I could not relate to the main character and that was a serious problem for me. I wish that I could give it a higher rating but I just could not truly connect with it. I am not saying that I don't have vices. I drink more coffee than most people can even fathom. I read more books in a year than many would read in their lifetime. I may reread this book at a later time. I am intrigued as to what the author will write next. He definitely has potential.


InkedBookDragon

I want to thank NetGalley and Sky Pony Press for providing me with this copy in exchange for an honest review

This is a book that touches on the subject of addictions as a main theme and undoubtedly we need this in more YA books.

3/5 Stars

You can find this one and more of my reviews on my blog A Book. A Thought.

This book follows Adam, his mother has left recently, his sister went with her and he has stayed with his father who has fallen into a deep depression, which prevents them from having a healthy father-son relationship. With all this going on in his life, Adam decides to take refuge in his pornography list, until a family friend teacher discovers his addiction and decides to help him by sending him to a support group to overcome his situation, and although Adam decides to attend, almost force to, he will not be ready to face the seriousness of the situation


I think that the addictions issue, as I said at the beginning, is not a topic that is touched abitually in YA, and I find this as something positive, I think it should be more touched in books, in order to provide readers with more information about it. It was very interesting to know about this topic, in the book we not only follow Adam's addiction to pornography, but we will also meet other characters with other types of additions. I don't have much knowledge about addictions, but from my perspective I think it has been touched in a very respectable way and be able to see the states that Adam goes through and how this affects his life and his relationship with others was really something that I loved about this book


On the other hand, I haven't felt connected with the characters as I would have liked, I feel that some of them, especially Dez, have selfish behaviors. I can understand from the addictions side, how this can change people's personalities and all that, but even so, I would have wanted a different female character, someone more reasonable or empathetic, I don't know, I just couldn't connect with her


I liked Adam a lot, I appreciate the growth of the character during the book and in the end it really seemed to be someone else and that made me understand his actions and behavior at the beginning. So I would say he's a good main character, I even think that the readers can get to feel very identified with him and even so, surely you'll not like him at some point in the book but I suppose that this is the idea, since this whole book is about Adam's mistakes and how he get to overcome them or not


The romantic aspects were too forced for me, if there hadn't be a romace at all, then it would be a thousand times better, I mean, I understand the idea of love and how this helps in Adam's recovery, but I don't think this is the kind of love that he really needed, besides there is no possibility that Dez is THAT perfect, she's literally described as the most beautiful girl of the known universe lol, that is a bit too much for me.I lean more for the family dynamics and how this kind of love and support in the end can change someone, you know? , but it's only my point of view, of course, I think you might like the romantic aspects of the book, because although I didn't like it I think it has pretty fun moments and that's nice


The writing style is great, especially in the first half of the book, you just fly through it, it's very easy to read, besides the book is quite short so it would be a great read to take into account in some read-a -thon or something like that.


Although I have had some problems with it, I feel it's a book with a very powerful and positive message, it's about highlighting honesty, the importance of communication and the support of those who go through the same thing as you. I think that despite touching a delicate topic, it's a very positive reading and I recommend it if you're interested in the addictions topics, it will surely be very interesting for you

Blog review will be available from the 7th!

Adam is a teen boy who has become addicted to porn in response to his parents' nasty divorce and subsequent abandonment by each of them (physically in the case of his mother and emotionally in the case of his father). Then Adam gets suspended from school for 80 days. This part I didn't get. The number of days was really odd and when the reason is finally revealed I really didn't think it was worthy of the suspension. Maybe my expectations for today's teens are too low? But, all this brings him together with his former chemistry teacher and the Knights of Vice and Dez, beautiful mixed up Dez. Mr. Connis' writing is pretty much spot on with the somewhat immature and self-centered look at the world one would expect from a young adult protagonist; however, I felt the characters were all a bit too polished as though he had a check list of what should be covered by the different personalities. But little things like how Adam analyzes problems in the form of mathematical equations do add to the story. Despite that and despite any preconceived ideas about where the story might go, The Temptation of Adam is enjoyable and engaging.

Thank you to NetGalley and Skyhorse Publishing for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

While Adam isn't addicted to drugs (he prefers porn to numb his mind), some of the peers in his Knights of Vice and AA meetings are. I'm having a hard time trying to properly review this book because the material hits so close to home. Addiction sucks. Loving an addict sucks. It's painful and hurtful and scary to watch someone you love so much slowly killing themselves. Soon after I got to the part when they received the phone call every friend and loved one of an addict dreads, I also got a phone call. My loved one got lucky. This time. But the entire time we were at the hospital this person kept acting like we were stupid to come. That they were okay. They just made a mistake and bought from the wrong person. They'll be more careful. All I can think to myself is, why don't you hear yourself right now? You'll be more careful? Why don't you understand that I need you. I wish he knew how strong the is. I wish he knew he could beat this. I wish he would try.

The way they come together in the end and realize they are not just their addictions made me cry.

I think the initial appeal of this book was to read an addiction story that I haven't seen in YA. Adam is addicted to porn and at the first of the book he is in trouble at school but you don't find out for what until halfway through the story. Part of his punishment involves spending time with a neighbor, helping Mr. Cratcher complete a record album, weird rehabilitation but whatever. Mr. Cratcher also runs an addiction group called the Knights of Vice that Adam is required to attend and he meets other members battling different addictions including a girl named Dez. Of course there's a love connection between between Adam and Dez which I find troubling when Adam should be focused on treatment and recovery not love interests. Adam also has a troubled relationship with his family that should be his focus. There's a weird road trip with the members of Knights of Vice supervised by Adams' sister because someone with no experience in counseling should be in charge of an addiction group. Adams' porn addiction isn't addressed ever in full with what he needs to do to battle his addiction and the steps to recovery. The entire story is disappointing.

‘We cannot be whole on earth, but we can be variables of broken and holy light. We might no be able to love wholly, but we can love truly if we face our pain together.’

The Temptation of Adam is a Young Adult novel that deals with the dark sides of addiction, the wreckage it leaves behind, and the pain it inflicts – both on the addicts and the people who care about them.

Sixteen-year-old Adam has been suspended from school – for an offense that is only revealed later in the book, but one can assume that it is related to his addiction: porn. Since his mother has left, Adam spends hours on end organizing playlists and watching porn videos. He is a brilliant boy, but he is somewhat lacking on the emotional side. He likes to philosophize about life in mathematical equations that are sometimes cynical, sometimes condescending. Although he is not ready to admit to his problem, he has to attend a self-help group of other addicts and go to regular meetings. This is a condition set up by his teacher, Mr. Cratcher, who saves him from being kicked out of school. Mr. Cratcher genuinely wants to help Adam and asks him to help him produce a music album he never finished when he was younger. First, Adam is not happy with this arrangement, but then he meets this girl, Dez, who claims to be addicted to addiction itself. He also befriends other addicts of Mr. Cratcher’s self-help group, who call themselves the Knights of Vice, and he tries to improve his relationship with his father and sister. He slowly seems to be making progress when Mr. Cratcher is hospitalized, and the Knights of Vice take it upon themselves to travel across the country to finish the album and to overcome their demons. But is it really a good idea to throw yourself into an adventure with others who are equally troubled? Can they truly learn to love, or will they end up consuming and destroying each other?

I have somewhat mixed feeling about this book. While the language is often poetic and poignant, you can’t help but feel that the author just tries too hard sometimes. They way these young people speak and think is as distant from real life as Jupiter is from the sun. This vast divide cannot even be bridged by a seemingly fun road trip. I would have expected less talk and more action. Some passages didn’t make lots of sense to me and just seemed to be an intellectual exercise. ‘If manliness stays static, it gets buried in the dust of progressive humanity.’ Other passages were overloaded with pathos: ‘”…I want it to be true when we say it. If we want to survive, our love can’t be a shadow. It’s got to be a blaze. I need to know addicts can blaze.” “I know they can. If there’s anything I’ve learned in the last few months, it’s that there’s a blaze of light in everyone.”‘ This all sounds beautiful, but it somehow didn’t resonate with me. I can’t get rid of the feeling that this is a book talking about addiction and not a book about being addicted.

What I did like, however, is the fact that the characters are not epitomes of their condition, but still more or less complex beings. Alright, you get Holden Caulfield 2.0 and the manic pixie dream girl, but in the end, all the characters develop in a plausible way. I also liked that love, friends, and family are portrayed as strong motors of change in a person’s life, but that they cannot be the single reason to cause it. Adam has to learn that the hard way. It’s a lot about being true to yourself and coming into your own. ‘Once you know what you are, you are no longer a human who struggles with addiction, but a human who struggles with being human.’

In short, The Temptation of Adam is great if you are interested in the impact of addiction, and if you can handle lots of theorizing about this issue.

(Thanks to Netgalley and Skyhorse Publishing for this free ARC.)

Hmmmmmm . . . . I'm pretty torn on this one. So let's look at it from a pro and con perspective:

Pro: Connis does an exceptional job with his approach to addiction. Although addiction isn't really anything new in YA literature, I appreciated that the author explored a whole spectrum of addictions rather than focusing solely on drugs and alcohol. Additionally, I enjoyed the author's examination of the psychology behind addiction. It's so easy to discount addictions like sex or porn, but through Connis's narrative we discover that these are just as debilitating and it's necessary to look at the root of where these addictive behaviors stem from and not just the addiction itself.

Pro: Adam. I liked Adam. A lot. I think a lot of readers will be able to relate to Adam making this a worthwhile addition to YA shelves.

Cons: I completely understand that this is a galley copy and errors are par for the course. But there were A LOT of errors. Words in wrong places / misspelled words / words repeated. I know, when reviewing, we're supposed to do our best to overlook them. But when there are so many that it starts to disrupt the flow of the narrative …. Well…. C’mon!

Con: Dez. I’m sorry but I just couldn’t. She epitomizes the whole manic pixie dream girl trope and while, yes, the author pokes fun and blatantly labels her as one – it doesn’t change the fact that she was, probably, my least favorite character and really the one thing that brought the whole book down. She was obnoxious and unlikable and all of these things made it difficult to find any speck of empathy for her. I couldn’t wrap my head around what Adam saw in her, except for the fact that she was “hot” (as we are continuously reminded over … and over … and over …. You get the picture).

So there you have it. A short list of pros and cons. Ultimately, while this has debut written all over it, it's also a work with a lot of potential. I think the things that could easily make this a stand-out novel are fixable and I admire what the author was able to do with a subject matter that is pretty prominent in the YA universe. It will be interesting to see what Connis has in store for us in the future.

I didn’t really know what to expect with The Temptation of Adam. It was another of those books that I read on the basis of being intrigued by the cover. What I got was my favourite kind of YA fiction. It is a coming-of-age novel that tackles issues in a new and fresh way.

Adam is an addict. He is addicted to porn and his attitude towards women is being affected by this. After an incident in school, Adam is saved by his teacher and family friend Mr Cratcher and is forced to work out his demons by helping him with a music project and going to therapy. Adam is reluctant. He is a recalcitrant teenager with not just one but a whole bag of chips of his shoulder.

It is through this servitude and his unlikely friendship with the Knights of Vice (all addicts in the group) that Adam is able to confront his demons.

I really enjoyed reading The Temptation of Adam. It is a novel with several layers and underneath those layers is a big thumping heart. It is the sort of novel that I would happily read again.

The Temptation of Adam by Dave Connis is available now.

For more information regarding Dave Connis (@DaveConnis) please visit www.daveconnis.com.

For more information regarding Skyhorse Publishing (@skyhorsepub) please visit www.skyhorsepublishing.com.

For more information regarding Sky Pony Press (@skyponypress) please visit www.skyponypress.com.

This book was SO amazingly good. I probably don't have enough words to say how incredible it was. I don't know that much about addiction, especially in teenagers, or anyone for that matter, and Mr. Connis handled this delicate topic with amazing honesty, humor and love. I did not expect to love this book so much. Adam is hilarious. Honest, to the point, hiding his feelings about his parents divorce and his sister moving out, and how he relies on porn every day. His punishment for what he did at school is to hang out with Mr. Cratcher, a family friend and teacher at his school who lives alone after losing his wife. Mr. Cratcher turns out to be the most unexpected character in this book. There is SO much to him beneath the surface which we see, much of after he doesn't figure as prominently in the story. The support group that Mr. C run s for kids with addictions initially appears useless to Adam but he plays along because he has to and he has an eye on Dez, a smart pretty girl in the group. The relationships between Adam and Mr. C and Adam and the group depend and grow stronger as the story progresses, as does his relationship with Dez who he is crazy about. The story take some amazing turns which I did not expect at all and but I loved each one what happened as Adam begins to realize what and who he really is. It is truly an amazing unfolding of the possibilities of life to these teenagers who think their addiction is their end. They are wrong. Definitely worth very second of your time!!! Mr. Connis, I hope that your book is recognized by other as not just a fictional story about a group of teens who have addictions, but about how these teens learn to live and love in spite of their imperfections. And that nobody is perfect. We are all addicts to some degree. LOVED THIS BOOK!!!!!!!! Much thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!!!

Hi, my name is Liis and I’m addicted to… hang on!… we’re not here to talk about me. This is all about Adam and the Knights of Vice.

I bet you’re expecting me to use all sorts of sticky (ahem) words in this review but no… minds out of the gutter, because- for me- The Temptation of Adam is one of those YA books that sits up there with The Serpent King by Zentner and I LOVED The Serpent King. Yes, the topics and themes are quite different, but TToA had a different kind of ‘beautiful pain‘ to it… The addictions in this book range from porn to drugs to self-harm, but the focus is more on the journey of healing. There are no graphic descriptions on how one or other character indulges in their personal vices. Anyway, I’m not going to assume everyone is going to like this book because we all take away and nitpick on things based on our personal preferences. In the end, it’s up to each reader to make of the book what they will.

Personally, I found TToA to be perfectly balanced. There’s hurt but also joy, there’s denial but also acceptance, there’s sadness but also fun. It’s life in a book, brilliantly delivered. If there’s one thing I admire seeing is how people… creators… poets and writers and musicians, take their pain, past hurt, struggles and turn it into something beautiful and worthwhile. Dave Connis has used his experiences***(see author's review for the book) and transferred it into a book about addiction with a hopeful and ‘can do’ attitude.

It took me no time at all to warm to Adam. Even filled with all the hurt over feeling rejected and the addiction, he’s a young intelligent lad and there’s nothing mean about him. He’s just lost. He’s lost when he does something that justifies the Anti-Adam Order at school.

It took me no time at all to warm to all the other characters either. They’re youngsters but there’s (thankfully) none of that ‘popular girl’ gang shebang or the ‘I’m so rich I’m better than you’ stuff. Well… there is that rich character but they rebel against it. Instead, they’re all someone you like and root for. They have their addictions to fight but being the Knights of Vice, they can do it together. Each member of the support group adds their little personality quirk to the mix and they bounce off each other nicely.

Outside of the teenagers, we have Adam’s dad and Mr. Cratcher as the main adult characters. It comes as no surprise that even the adult characters in this book are fighting their own personal battles. By now it might start to sound like everyone in TToA has a problem and it might be too much to take… but, no. It never gets suffocating or depressing… Yes, there’s death involved, but it’s also life.

More importantly, all the characters, adult and teenage, are like standing domino pieces and with Adam’s addiction coming to light, he gives that nudge to make the whole row fall into a path of a connected journey towards something better.

From addiction ⇒ new-found freedom ⇒ relapses ⇒ accepting the lifelong fight ahead was fantastically peppered with the blossoming friendships, loveships and family dynamics. Just like life is messy and unpredictable, so were the moments where it felt like they were all going to be perfectly OK, to moments where all fell to pot again. Moments where the fight just got too much and hopelessness kicked in, to moments where friendship offered a supporting hand to crawl out of denial towards acceptance.

What I most enjoyed was the positive effect Dez had on Adam. Dez is also in Knights of Vice. A storm in a teacup and frustrating at times as a character but let’s not forget that she has her own addiction and the way she acts, is her escape. She’s the entirety of a teenage chaos!

Dez is also the only living and breathing female that makes Adam look up from the gripping haze of porn. Yes, you could argue that love does not fix anything. No, it doesn’t. It will always be up to our very selves to fix ourselves, but love does give us that little kick up the backside to try. Love does give us that motivation and hope for the future.

I enjoyed the writing in this book a lot and it’s mostly down to Adam’s character. The way he sees Dez is not your dry account of she looks hot jibber jabber. It’s not some kind of teenage puppy love pining either. It’s something more.

Here you may ask me- is this all there is? Addiction and teenage love? No. There’s the mysterious and wise Mr. Cratcher. With his own story to tell, he is the selfless mentor the teenagers need. I can’t say much about him but there might be some music involved! In fact, the music element adds nicely to the plot development and sends our KoV on a road trip.. how they get along there, all the way from home with their addictions? You’ll just have to find out for yourself.

Overall– I am so happy I decided to read this book. Themes and characters aside, I truly enjoyed the prose. It was just perfect to create the atmosphere, whether melancholy, sad, bordering philosophical or point blank light-hearted. There is a lot of Adam’s inner monologue but it never get’s dull… the kid has substance!

DNFed at 20%. I think this book is trying too hard to be a John Green book with it's struggling but lovable male protag and TOTALLY NOT A MANIC PIXIE GIRL (but totally a manic pixie girl) love interest. The relationships between the characters feel so inorganic and I'm just not down for this.

As much as I wanted to love it, I didn't. It's not a bad story, just not something I found all that memorable.

Adam is addicted to porn, and expelled from school and forced to see his teacher every morning from 5-7 as well as attend some sort of AA meetings with other addicted youth. When I first read about the porn, I thought please no, worried there would be lots of inappropriate graphic scenes, but far from it. This book is definitely written with young adults in mind and what they are going through and has a good message, but I found myself just reading it to get it over with and find the ending, not because it touched me all that much. I just wanted to be able to move on to my next book.