Inexcusable

Chris Lynch has written a true to life account of the way in which teens think and act. It is a commentary on how society explains behaviors in which the participants can never quite figure out how they got themselves into negative situations. It also gives an inside view as to how actions can be misinterpreted with life altering consequences. This one should be required reading in every high school in America!

This book is fascinating and disturbing. I couldn't put it down. Inexcusable, by Chris Lynch, is told from the perspective of Keir Sarafian, a high school senior, football kicker, and self-proclaimed "good guy". The very first scene depicts Keir in a bedroom having an intense confrontation with Gigi Boudakian, the girl that he claims to love. Gigi rails against him for what he's just done to her. "I said no" she insists. Keir argues with her, and with himself, because the picture in front of him simply can't be right. He is baffled. He can't possibly have just done this to someone he loves. The rest of the book consists of a series of flashbacks of Keir's senior year, as he looks at himself, his family, and at recent events in his life. These scenes are interspersed with scenes from the confrontation with Gigi, and the reader only gradually learns what has led up to the conflict in the bedroom. At first glance, Keir seems like a nice guy. He's popular, with plenty of friends. He's very close to his father and his two older sisters (his mother died when he was young). He has an engaging, self-deprecating voice. However, it becomes clear quite early in the book that there is a disconnect between Keir's view of himself and who he really is. For example, Keir tackles an opposing player in a football game, permanently injuring the other boy, and costing the boy a chance at a football career. Instead of feeling remorse or empathy, Keir mostly worries about himself, and whether or not other people will perceive him as a monster. He blames the coach who put him in, and even blames the other kid for not getting up when he should have. Other incidents follow, and the pattern of lack of remorse or responsibility, and of blaming other people, strengthens. Here's an example of Keir's denial and rationalization (not in reference to Gigi, but to another incident): "You can look at a thing and at the time it will look funny, if conditions are right. In the mean light of day an event from the night before might look plain nasty, but that does not automatically render it nasty, in its context. Even if I might partway agree with you about the nastiness in the light, that still doesn't mean that at its original time the thing itself couldn't have been a very different, better thing." The reader also gradually comes to see that Keir's close family may not be completely healthy. Keir spends most of his evenings at home with his father, playing Risk and drinking beer. He talks with his college sisters on the phone every day. He worries deeply about going away to college himself and leaving his father home alone. He doesn't seem to have any close friends, although he has many acquaintances. Gigi, who he claims to love, plays no part whatsoever in most of the backstory, although they are supposedly longtime friends. There's a moment where Keir is at a party that speaks to his isolation. He thinks: "I wanted other people. Not any other people but my people. I

"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 Sarafian is a good guy. Would brainy older sisters love him if he was a monster? Does a menace to society choose to stay home and play a board game with his father when parties are raging? He doesn't even have a lot of experience with girls, okay? Yet the love of his life, the precious and unattainable Gigi, has accused him of going too far. He loves Gigi and has loved her forever, so why would she accuse him of this? How does Keir appear to the outside world? In Lynch's award-winning novel, our "good guy," a star football player, a close friend to his widowed down, an admiring younger sibling, faces how his actions appear to the outside world. Keir examines the aftermath of his team's drunken rage on a Paul Revere statue-why does the town not understand the hilarity, the spirity of the statue attack? Why does the living video record of the soccer team party not show the funny parts of the evening, but just the "grotesque, awful, dark, blurry, horror film" of harassing and humiliating acts that our narrator committed? Inexcusable gets inside the mind of a guy I'd probably label as big-time trouble if I ran into him. Highly recommended for both male and female teens.

i really really hated this book. which is exactly why it is so very good. from the beginning i was convinced that kier was a sociopath...but the ending which vindicated this theory was anything by satisfying. it burns me up when i think about it even now, which is, i think, exactly what lynch wanted. lynch's take on modern day high school is extremely authentic. i remember many boys exactly like this from those years of my own life...destructive, pill popping, line toting, jerks who refuse to take responsibility for their actions and are given leeway because they are good at a sport. kier rejects all reality checks (like when his sister honestly points out their father's enabling behavior) and when things don't go his way, he invents his own reality in his head, editing the things he doesn't want to see. quite honestly, this book is unique. a close look at society's tendency to 'hand it all over' to the boys who can kick around a football.

Keir Sarafian is a self-proclaimed "good guy." After all, he says, he has "character witnesses." His two older sisters love, respect and support him, and "people like that don't support monsters." And, of course, there's Keir's dad Ray. Widowed for more than fifteen years, Ray expends all of his energy on his kids (OK, and some on the occasional glass of beer...or two...or more). "You had to be a good guy if you were Ray Sarafian's kid," says Keir. "You couldn't possibly be anything less." As Keir's narrative unfolds, though, readers may start to question whether Ray's "good guy" persona is really accurate. Troubling chapters that take place in the aftermath of an action that Gigi Boudakian is calling date rape alternate with chapters that tell the story of Keir's senior year in high school. Keir claims that the point of these stories is to tell the truth, to show that he's not the kind of guy who could ever be capable of rape. As the saga of Keir's senior year unfolds, though, his account raises more questions than it answers. Keir's masterful tackle during the football season, which leaves the tacklee paralyzed and gives Keir the nickname "Killer," is an accident --- right? Clearly Keir wouldn't have gotten all those football scholarships otherwise --- would he? That video that shows a shadowy figure violently hazing the high school's soccer team couldn't be of Keir --- could it? That statue of Paul Revere couldn't have been so utterly destroyed by Keir and his friends in a post-party frenzy --- could it? And, of course, it's normal for Keir to forget all of these episodes after a night of binge drinking and popping pills --- isn't it? By the end of the novel, the reader, and maybe even Keir himself, is starting to question not only everything Keir claims, but also the premises on which he bases his life. Is his dad really a good influence, or does he enable Keir's problematic behavior? Do Keir's sisters really support him, or has their relationship already been utterly damaged? "The way it looks is not the way it is," says Keir. This statement is true in more ways than one, as INEXCUSABLE's surprising narrative plays out. Chris Lynch's accomplished novel is bound to get readers thinking about whether or not they can trust this narrator. They're also likely to consider long and hard what it means to be the popular guy, the "good guy," and whether those labels excuse a lot of destructive, dangerous behaviors. INEXCUSABLE is not only a compelling character study and a powerful, forceful story that will draw in readers --- it's also a thoughtful examination of a certain kind of young man, an exploration that should be practically required reading for high school students today. --- Reviewed by Norah Piehl