BookChick Recommends “Inexcusable” by Chris Lynch
Unreliable narrators are an interesting breed in fiction. The classic example of such a narrator is Holden Caulfield in “Catcher in the Rye.” Chris Lynch’s Keir in “Inexcusable” comes from the same mold. You’re not quite sure what to make of him at first, but steadily, bit by bit, you learn he might not be all he seems. But then again, he is who he purports to be because it’s in the telling of his stories — how he crippled a member of an opposing football team during a game, how he hazed other students — you learn he believes he is good, yet he is that guy. He is a high school football player who fancies himself a “lovable rogue.” But he’s more than that. He’s someone capable of violence. And in “Inexcusable” we see the story of a rape from the point of view of the rapist. Because ultimately that’s what the story is about — a searing portrait of how one young man does something inexcusable and rapes the girl he has an enormous crush on. The author doesn’t exonerate Keir, now does Keir exonerate himself. That, along with Lynch’s masterful look into the mind of a liar who wants to be good but can’t, is a fantastic read.
This was one of the first novels that hooked me into the young adult genre. Read it!
