ARC Review: Uses For Boys by Erica Lorraine Scheidt!

USES FOR BOYS

by Erica Lorainne Scheidt

Publisher: St Martin's Griffin
Genre: YA Contemporary

Expected Publication Date: January 15, 2013! 

Review Source: e-ARC received from St. Martin's Griffin in exchange for an honest review, with thanks!
Contains Elements Of:

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.

       Oh Lawdy, Lawd this book broke my heart!
Even after all the time I've had to think on it since I read the final pages I'm still at a loss for words. And mostly, I'm terrified I won't do it justice!
I'm going to start out by saying that this isn't some pretty little contemporary romance that will have you picking out wedding colours to match your new book boyfriend's eyes!
It's a sad and very real look into the lives of a lot of girls struggling through the horrendous, and unfortunately unavoidable, task of finding out what their place is in the world. 
Unfortunately for Anna, it's a huge task that she must undertake without the stability of a nurturing home environment and a loving parent to soothe her fears when the world gets to be too much for her to take. 

She has dreadlocks and I think, I always think this when I see girls with dreadlocks,  that she knows something about herself that I don't know about myself.
  e-copy - Kindle 40%  

Anna resonated with me on an almost cellular level, that sounds silly, doesn't it? But it's true.
I know what it's like to be that Oh so grown up girl, fending for herself long before she should have been and finding "Love" with whichever boy seems to be closest at the time. I understood Anna, because I've lived her life. 
 She’s lonely and confused - more than most teens. She looks to boys to fill the void within her that her mother's absence has left. And the constant competition with her best friend Toy often leaves her feeling like her life doesn't quite measure up. Just what every insecure teenage girl needs, right?

"I was alone." I say aloud. "And then I found you." 

e-copy - Kindle 41%    

Much of this book was difficult for me to read, a part of me wanted to jump right into the novel and shake Anna, as I saw her making a lot of the mistakes I had in my teens. Another part of me wanted to track down her mother at whichever bar or hotel or restaurant she might be scouring for her next husband and yell and scream and open her eyes to the way she was influencing her daughter, even by not being there. I actually had to take a bit of a breather after I read the final pages, that's how deeply Uses For Boys affected me!

I get a job in a cafe. I make espressos, cappuccinos, lattes. I make nine dollars an hour and tips in a jar.
Nobody asks about my parents. Nobody says, why aren't you in school? Nobody says, where's your mother? Nobody ever says, where's your father? But I rehearse the conversation. "There are no fathers in this story," I 'll say. I think it's a very good line.
But I look for him. My useless father. I look for him at the cafe. On the street.
 e-copy - Kindle 45%  

I'm going to say here that while I loved this book, I'm not sure it's a book everyone will enjoy. But I do think it's a book everyone should read! It's stop/start prose isn't something we see regularly in YA and Anna is a character that not everyone will connect with, but for those that do connect with her I think they will find it as enjoyable as I did!

Erica's prose is quite haunting, it's stark and beautiful, poetic, lyrical and laboured all at once and while this is a story that any writer could have given us, I doubt any could have made it as lovely and heartbreaking as Scheidt!  

Uses for Boys should be read by every teenage girl, their parents and even their brothers. I think there's so much to learn from this book about life and relationships. And understanding that who you are at fifteen isn't who you'll be for the rest of your life!

I'm giving this one Five OH, BRADS!

OH BRAD, YOU'VE MADE ME THE HAPPIEST GIRL IN THE WOLRD!

Purchase your copy of Uses For Boys

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 Special OH BRAD thanks to St. Martin's Griffin 

& Netgalley
for providing this review copy in exchange for an honest review!