Review Detail

Uses for Boys by Erica Lorraine Scheidt was a spectacular debut. I thoroughly enjoyed it and look forward to reading more from Erica Lorraine Scheidt in the future. I was not sure what I would think of this one - at first, the name scared me off a bit. Contemporaries lately have been so hit or miss for me, so I have been faring towards the side of shying away. I am so happy I took the chance and read this one, since it was a great read.

Uses for Boys is not what I was expecting based on the title. It's deep, fluid, and almost poetic in the way it reads. There are so many wrong paths Anna goes down throughout the book, but then there also is the element of hope and the light at the end of the tunnel that shows Anna the way life can really be.

I loved Erica Lorraine Scheidt's unique writing style. She features shorter, choppy sentences interspersed among longer more fluid sentences. It's a style that usually I am not a fan of, but in this book it just worked. There are also very short chapters, another element that much of the time drives me nuts, but with Uses for Boys, it really worked.

Uses for Boys follows Anna's life from a young age to her teenage years and it was a fun progression. I loved how the style of the book really works its way into the plot. I liked the plot, yet I wanted more. More backstory and more development. I was instantly sucked into the story on page one, something that doesn''t happen very often for me, and I stayed that way throughout the entirety of the book. I read Uses for Boys in one sitting. But when I finished, I was left wanting more from everything that had happened.

Uses for Boys was a book I quite enjoyed. It was unique, different, and quite fast paced. I loved the character growth in Anna throughout the novel and the character she has become by the book's end.