2. Plot Summary. Josh is a senior in high school. He's about to graduate, but a secret from his past has come back to haunt him. Unfortunately, it seems that pretty much everyone knows the secret, and he hasn't been able to escape from it for the last five years. But a lot is going on in his life. He's one of the star baseball players on his high school team, and he's being scouted for college. His coach is giving him a hard time. His best friend Rachel has been out of his life since the incident in seventh grade and now wants back in. But Eve is back, bringing the past with her, and Josh can't seem to get past it - because Josh doesn't know the truth.
3. Critical Analysis. Fitting squarely into the Modern Problem Novel genre, the main character Josh appears to the rest of the characters in the book to be coping; however, he has not effectively dealt with the issue that is constantly at the front of his consciousness: the fact that he had sex in seventh grade with his history teacher, Evelyn Sherman. As with many problem novels, the adults in this novel are removed from the main character. They are neither sympathetic nor supportive. Even though Josh's therapist is sincere and Josh appreciates his help, Josh has not been able to count on any of the adults in his life to help him through the mental and emotional turmoil he is going through.
Boy Toy is a difficult book to read as an adult, and as a teacher who works with adolescents. The center section of the novel is a flashback to seventh grade when Mrs. Sherman begins a deliberate process to seduce Josh. He's abused over a period of several months before an incident between Josh and his best friend Rachel brings the issue to light. The scenes are graphically described throughout the section, and it's hard to "watch" a boy be systematically abused by someone he likes and trusts in a way that makes it impossible for him to understand that it wasn't his fault, even now as a senior. His parents are angry with him for refusing to testify against Mrs. Sherman, which has alienated them from him. His friends do not really understand him. Only his friend Zik seems to instinctively understand what Josh needs, which is mostly not to talk about it. It is only through his own actions that Josh finally makes a breakthrough and realizes that the blame he has placed on himself for five years is unfounded. At that point, the reader feels that there is hope for Josh to be emotionally OK.
Young Adult literature guru Teri Lesesne, author of Heinemann's Reading Ladders, cautioned classroom teachers about having this title on the shelf in a presentation I attended. Based on her comments, as a teacher, I have chosen to not keep a copy of Boy Toy on my classroom library shelf, not as an act of censorship, but rather because I feel that this particular novel is better recommended on a person by person basis. The subject matter is extremely sensitive. Anyone reading the book who is not mature enough to handle the subject matter may react in a way that shows little sensitivity toward fellow students who may have suffered sexual abuse at the hands of a trusted adult, and I would never want someone who is dealing with such a painful experience to hear fellow students sniggering over the descriptions of the relationship between Josh and Mrs. Sherman.
[Ironically, after reading this novel over the summer in preparation for this blog, a teacher at my high school was arrested for having sex with one of her students. I recommended Boy Toy to an adult who made comments about how the teacher should not have to go to jail because the boy probably "had the time of his life" and will have this to "drool over for the rest of his life." The situation is slightly different - 13 versus 16 years of age. However, damage is done, and there will be much for the student to deal with.]
The encounter with Mrs. Sherman near the end of the story is powerful. The reader is left with the hope that Josh is going to be all right because for the first time since he was 13, Josh actually begins to believe that he will be all right. But what a long, painful process it was to get there.
4. Review Excerpts.
On his website, Barry Lyga has published a review of Boy Toy by Caitlin, and high school senior. In her review, she states, "People can be absorbed by a good book so that they can't stop talking about it, but few have ever been haunted by a book. Boy Toy was my literary poltergeist for the past few days" and "this book forces you to think about a dozen different issues . . . . When you finally think you have an opinion about the scandal, you're forced to rethink it because Josh changes his mind many times over throughout the course of the story. (http://barrylyga.com/new/boy-toy-caitlin.html)
New York Times: "This is an upsetting, intense, intricately drawn portrait of the fallout from a 12-year-old boy’s involvement with his seventh-grade teacher. . . . an unsettling read, but that’s exactly what it ought to be."
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