Review Detail

Alexi Littrell is keeping a secret. Something happened to her over the summer, something that drives her to hide in her closet and scratch the back of her neck to the point of bleeding. She’s lost but she can’t show it. That all changes when a tragedy rocks their town and Bodee Lennox, known as The Kool-Aid Kid due to him dying his hair wild colors with packs of Kool-Aid, is suddenly living with them. He gets Alexi in ways no one else does and together, they just might be able to start facing their pasts and start healing.

This is definitely the kind of book that stays with you. Alexi’s voice, her confused thoughts, everything about her, just came off as so real that there were times while reading that my hands were shaking. This is a voice that could easily belong to someone you know.

There’s a lot of books out there that deal with rape but this is the first one I’ve come across that deals with the victim making excuses for her rapist. The ‘I let him’, the ‘he was hurt/vulnerable’, the ‘other than that night, he’s a good guy’. With all this, Alexi’s mind and thoughts are an understandable mess. I felt for her through the whole book.

Bodee, I definitely fell in love with him. He was so caring and gentle with Alexi, even while facing his own demons. The slow development of their friendship was absolutely amazing. Alexi’s two girlfriends, Heather and Liz, were also great characters. Very different from each other so each had their own voice and their own issues through the book.

One of the favorite things was how Alexi latched on to Captain Lyric, a person who had written a song lyric on her desk and when she wrote the next line, it became their thing. I completely understood her desire not to find out who was Captain Lyric because knowing would change everything.

I did suspect who the rapist was early on but that didn’t matter. It’s not a story full of twists, it’s about Alexi trying to come to terms with what happened to her. The writing, the pacing, the sensitivity to such hard topics, it’s really hard to believe this is a debut author. Courtney C Stevens is definitely someone to watch for.