Review: Uses for Boys by Erica Lorraine Scheidt

Uses for Boys by Erica Lorraine Scheidt

• Pub. Date: January 15, 2013
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Pages:240
• Goodreads/Amazon/Book Depository

Anna remembers a time before boys, when she was little and everything made sense. When she and her mom were a family, just the two of them against the world. But now her mom is gone most of the time, chasing the next marriage, bringing home the next stepfather. Anna is left on her own—until she discovers that she can make boys her family. From Desmond to Joey, Todd to Sam, Anna learns that if you give boys what they want, you can get what you need. But the price is high—the other kids make fun of her; the girls call her a slut. Anna's new friend, Toy, seems to have found a way around the loneliness, but Toy has her own secrets that even Anna can't know.

Then comes Sam. When Anna actually meets a boy who is more than just useful, whose family eats dinner together, laughs, and tells stories, the truth about love becomes clear. And she finally learns how it feels to have something to lose—and something to offer. Real, shocking, uplifting, and stunningly lyrical,  Uses for Boys  is a story of breaking down and growing up.

First Line: In the happy times, in the tell-me-again times, when I'm seven and there are no stepbrothers and it's before the stepfathers, my mom lets me sleep in her bed.

Review: I have no idea why I read this the whole way through when I clearly wanted to mark it as a dnf and never look at this book again. Uses for Boys was not my cup of tea, the plot sounded promising but it was nothing that I expected, the writing was pretty basic there were some very explicit sexual content that seemed it was there only for the shock factor and nothing more.

Anna is just really a sad depressing character in my opinion, she doesn't get any affection from her mother who changes men several times throughout the book and so Anna seeks that attention elsewhere...boys. She has sex alot with many different boys and doesn't care about how any of them treat her. Normally a character who is so emotionally damaged makes it easier for me to connect with them in some way or feel some form of sympathy for them that sucks me into the book but not Anna I really disliked her character.

Overall this was just an odd book, I'm not sure how else to describe it. I'm still trying to figure out what was the point of this book, I can see what the author might have been trying to accomplish with this book but it could have been done in a more tasteful manner. Also I don't think the cover really goes well with the words inside the book at all. Personally I can't recommend this book but I do recommend checking out other reviews because there were some who really did like it.