“The cops wanted to know if I was Zac’s girlfriend, if I was drinking, doing drugs, if I ever worked as a stripper, if I ever kissed Zac before that night. What the hell does any of that have to do with what happened?”

Title:  Some Boys

Author:  Patty Blount

Series: None

Publication: August 5th 2014 by Sourcebooks Fire

Genre:  Contemporary, Romance

Pages:  339

Source: Publisher at ALA

Summary: 

Some boys go too far. Some boys will break your heart. But one boy can make you whole. 

When Grace meets Ian she’s afraid. Afraid he’ll reject her like the rest of the school, like her own family. After she accuses the town golden boy of rape, everyone turns against Grace. They call her a slut and a liar. But…Ian doesn’t. He’s funny and kind with secrets of his own. 

But how do you trust the best friend of the boy who raped you? How do you believe in love? 

A gut-wrenching, powerful love story told from alternating points of view by the acclaimed author of Send. 

My Thoughts: 

Some Boys by Patty Blount covers one of the most controversial topics in today’s society: rape. I would be lying if I told you that reading this book was easy, because it isn’t. How would you feel if no one believed what you had to say? How would you feel if the person that found you bleeding and unconscious didn’t believe you, either? What about your own father? This is what Grace is going through,  and her story mirrors the story of thousands of girls today.

Some Boys starts off mere days after Grace is raped. As is normal when it comes to the “he said, she said” sort of battles, those who hear what is going on tend to side with whomever has more social standing – and in this case, that is Zac. Here’s the deal. Grace’s friends knew that she liked Zac before the party, they helped her get dressed in a way that he would like, they saw her flirting with him – so, therefore, Grace must be lying, right? Sadly, this is the all too common way rapes are dealt with. If the victim had previous feelings for their attacker, if they didn’t fight back hard enough, if they were drinking, wearing provocative clothes, etc., then people automatically assume that their accusations are false. Grace is dealing with this ten fold. Not only does no one believe her because of who she accused, but they harass her incessantly because of it. They vandalize her car, her house, people ask her for sex, people throw things at her, say horrible things – things that shouldn’t be done to someone who has already suffered the trauma of their lifetime. The worst part? Even the people who sort of know the truth go along with everyone else because it is easier to play along than it is to stand up for someone.

This book is split between two point of views. We have Ian, one the aforementioned naysayers that refuses to tell the truth, and we have Grace. Now, Ian and Grace were really interesting for two reasons. One, before Grace is raped, they were both planning on asking each other out but now Ian has backed off because his best friend got to her first. See where this is going? Bro code is a huge part of this, and I swear to God every single time Ian brought it up as an excuse made me want to castrate him with a blunt butter knife. Guess why I wanted to castrate him so badly? Ian is the one who found Grace unconscious and bleeding out in the middle of the woods and yet he still didn’t stand up for her! What an ass. Please excuse that, back to our regularly scheduled programing here. So, the second reason that I loved reading from their intermixed perspectives was because Grace didn’t take any of Ian’s shit. She stood up for herself, she made him think about his actions and what he saw, and she made him tuck tail and run – I loved every second of it.

Speaking of Grace, I really loved her. I don’t even know how to describe how much I loved her. She was strong, she was fierce, she was a firecracker. I loved her no nonsense attitude, the way she stood up for herself, the badass way she tried to raise awareness for what had been done to her at the end of the book. I loved everything about her. Also, her sharp temper could rival Rose Hathaway – and that’s saying something. If you have read Vampire Academy, you know exactly what I mean by that. I have to give Grace some serious credit, because, as you all know, I give credit where credit is due. She didn’t let her rape destroy her. She wasn’t fine, she wasn’t okay, she wasn’t happy – she was shattered, but she didn’t let it stop her from surviving day after day. She didn’t let it keep her down, she didn’t keep her mouth shut, she didn’t just let it happen. She fought for herself and it was beautiful.

Now, Ian. If you couldn’t tell from my earlier paragraph, I hated him. Being someone’s friend is no excuse to ignore what is right when it is sitting right in front of your damn eyes. I do have to say that he did develop as a character, Grace did make him see the truth in the end, but still. It shouldn’t have taken him stealing Zac’s phone and seeing something that I am not going to talk about, because it is a huge spoiler, to realize that Grace was right and that he was an asshole for not believing her sooner. I mean, really? Do you really think a girl would come out with something like that against the most popular boy in school in a town that small without it being true? I can say this, though. I hate him, but I admire his loyalty just as much as I loathe it. Loyalty is a rare thing, I’ll admit that, so seeing it to that degree was sort of nice – though it was completely misguided. I don’t know what else to say about Ian, I don’t want to hate on him any more than I already have in this review, so, moving on.

If I had to pick one last thing to say, it would be this: Some Boys is a deep cutting, emotional, and extremely raw story that works hard to bring rape and its effects into the light. I think it does an incredible job of showing us what we don’t want to see, of showing us how people can hurt one another. I think every single person needs to read this book as soon as they possibly can, it is worth it.