3.0
Irreversible
ByPublisher Description
The accused date rapist from the “finely crafted and thought-provoking” (School Library Journal) National Book Award Finalist, Inexcusable, must confront the kind of person he really is and come to terms with his past actions, in this stunning sequel from Printz Honor–winning author Chris Lynch.
Keir Sarafian insists he did nothing wrong. But no one will believe that he’s the good guy he knows he is—no one except his father, Ray. And Ray is just the person Keir has to get away from in order to have the fresh start he deserves.
Now at Carnegie College, Keir’s life isn’t what he thought it would be. Two soccer players are poised to take his spot as kicker. Ray keeps calling, and Joyce, his guiding light on campus, seems to be avoiding him. When tragedy strikes, will Keir finally be able to confront his past actions and realize his potential?
Keir Sarafian insists he did nothing wrong. But no one will believe that he’s the good guy he knows he is—no one except his father, Ray. And Ray is just the person Keir has to get away from in order to have the fresh start he deserves.
Now at Carnegie College, Keir’s life isn’t what he thought it would be. Two soccer players are poised to take his spot as kicker. Ray keeps calling, and Joyce, his guiding light on campus, seems to be avoiding him. When tragedy strikes, will Keir finally be able to confront his past actions and realize his potential?
Download the free Fable app
Stay organized
Keep track of what you’re reading, what you’ve finished, and what’s next.
Build a better TBR
Swipe, skip, and save with our smart list-building tool
Rate and review
Share your take with other readers with half stars, emojis, and tags
Curate your feed
Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesStay organized
Keep track of what you’re reading, what you’ve finished, and what’s next.Build a better TBR
Swipe, skip, and save with our smart list-building toolRate and review
Share your take with other readers with half stars, emojis, and tagsCurate your feed
Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesIrreversible Reviews
3.0
“a book that finally addresses the age-old question: if you did it but you didn’t mean it, did you actually do it?
i’m not going to beat around the bush with this one (i’ve already left it idling in my drafts for more than 18 months): it’s about rape. Inexcusable and Irreversible is about rape. a high school guy takes the girl he likes out on a date – and, against his own intentions and to his own horror, rapes her. but just because it turned out that way doesn’t make him a… rapist, right? he’s a good guy. and he really is – he’s a talented football player (and not even the obnoxious kind), a loyal friend, a devoted son, a good brother, and definitely not the kind of guy that rapes a girl.
and so he convinces himself that he didn’t – and Gigi (his girlfriend?/date?/crush?) must have misunderstood the situation. at one point, he apologises to her because he didn’t like that she wasn’t speaking to him anymore; but when she presses him to answer what he was sorry for, he truly didn’t know. because he really didn’t do anything wrong; and now, he needs to convince her that she’s made a mistake.
my memory is a little fuzzy about the details because it’s been 18 months since i last finished this dilogy; but i distinctly remember the entire span of both books being so extremely frustrating to read – in that it was so achingly real that, so many times, i wanted to reach into the pages and slap this boy around. more importantly, i thought the author really crafted a portrait of “the person who accidentally rapes” with such a deft touch that it opens up a lot of hard truths to consider. many hold the opinion that this project proves the author as a rape apologist; personally, i felt he was simply just writing from the perspective of a rapist – an undertaking rarely executed in the literary world – and by doing so, landed in A WHOLE LOT OF GREY AREA. of course it’s discomforting. we always want to see the transgressor being written as a clear-cut bad person and the rapist as the obvious villain; and when it’s not presented to us as such, when it’s a normal eighteen-year-old boy at the cusp of greatness with friends and family and a bright college football future ahead of him, we cannot accept the melding of realities and so we take out our sticks and stones and decry the messenger foul. we slap it with one star out of spite against the protagonist (antagonist?), and miss the forest for the trees. because bad is bad and good is good and bad cannot stem from good and therefore if this author makes the basis of the bad character good, then he is making excuses for him.
i think the only thing that enrages me more than the guy in this story (because he is two books’ worth of mindnumbingly dumb and self-centered), is the people who completely and utterly missed the point of this narrative. life is not black-and-white. it’s not always just horrible people who do horrible things. sometimes, the bad guy *IS* a nice guy. sometimes, he may even be the nice Catholic boy who is polite with good grades who just so happened to rape a girl when he was in college. he’s not a bad guy; how could he be? he’s now a Supreme Court Justice of the United States.
the question here shouldn’t be about the goodness or the badness of a single character; but rather, how we should respond as a society, when a non-bad person does a bad thing. because not everyone walks around with a pitchfork in their hands and their horns showing out of their heads - so unless we get comfortable with the premise that “nice people are capable of bad things too”, it will continue to be very hard for us as human beings, to understand when a transgression is made; and to truly recognise when real harm is being done against us.”
“So much better than the first book. Way more detailed and heartfelt. Really enjoyed reading this”
About Chris Lynch
Chris Lynch is the award-winning author of several highly acclaimed young adult novels, including Printz Honor Book Freewill, Iceman, Gypsy Davey, and Shadow Boxer—all ALA Best Books for Young Adults—as well as Killing Time in Crystal City, Little Blue Lies, Pieces, Kill Switch, Angry Young Man, and Inexcusable, which was a National Book Award finalist and the recipient of six starred reviews. Chris is the author of middle grade novel Walkin’ the Dog. He holds an MA from the writing program at Emerson College. He teaches in the creative writing MFA program at Lesley University. He lives in Boston and in Scotland.
Other books by Chris Lynch
Start a Book Club
Start a public or private book club with this book on the Fable app today!FAQ
Do I have to buy the ebook to participate in a book club?
Why can’t I buy the ebook on the app?
How is Fable’s reader different from Kindle?
Do you sell physical books too?
Are book clubs free to join on Fable?
How do I start a book club with this book on Fable?
