Inexcusable

by Chris Lynch, 165 pages

"I am only trying to stop the sound. It looks terrible what I am doing, as I watch my hands doing it...but I am only trying to stop that awful sound and the way it looks is not the way it is."

Keir is a good guy. He gets the grades, the scholarships and the friends. He drinks and does drugs - but that's only occasionally so it's fine. And sure, he was responsible for crippling another football player - but that was only an accident, right? And yes, he got drunk with his classmates and toppled over the town statue - but that was just a high school prank. Keir has a rational explanation for everything. But when his childhood friend Gigi accuses him of the worst possible offense - rape - will his reasoning about the night's events be enough to convince her otherwise?

At the very first, I empathized with Keir as he relived the events that led up to the moment he is accused of raping Gigi. However, I immediately realized something was amiss. Keir has an excuse for everything and his narration rapidly becomes a disturbing trek into the psyche of a burgeoning sociopath. Lynch's character development is top notch and I couldn't put this one down.

From the perspective of an adult, I saw the patterns fairly quickly - Keir's father's enabling behavior, his abysmal refutation, and his uncanny rationalization for everything. But as a teen, I suppose I might read it more surprisingly. It's important for young adults to read about these sorts of patterns of behavior so that they might identify them before the 'inexcusable' ever happens. Well done.