Carrie Mesrobian is a Young Adult writer from Minnesota and she recently won the MN book award for her first book Sex and Violence. Today, the ARCs are ready and the cover is revealed for her second book, Perfectly Good White Boy. I Love This Cover!!
Read on to see some of the first reviews for Perfectly Good White Boy and for an excerpt from the book. Then add Perfectly Good White Boy to your Goodreads shelf.
Reviews for Perfectly
Good White Boy:
Raw and unflinching, this is a skilled portrait of an
eighteen-year-old on the edge of making a decision that will shape the whole
rest of his life. Carrie Mesrobian is a truly fearless writer, one to envy and
watch.
—Nova Ren Suma, author of Imaginary Girls and 17
& Gone
"Carrie Mesrobian writes with a raw, courageous honesty
that begs readers to pay attention. Perfectly Good White Boy is a perfectly great, moving, and
memorable story about growing up in an often ridiculous world."
- John Corey Whaley, Printz Award-winning
author of Where Things Come Back and Noggin
Excerpt
The whole thing hadn’t lasted more than fifteen minutes,
and now I smelled like fabric softener sheets, which kind of gave me a
headache. That and Hallie’s words kept piling up in my head. The few ones she
said.
I stopped at the light before the turnoff to my house. I
was the only car there. Sitting at the light, my car wasting gas.
“Touch me there,” Hallie said. “Like this.”
The light kept being red. A truck roared past me.
“Not like that,” Hallie said.
I did what she said, but I hadn’t been sure about what I
was doing, or even how it was that different from what I ever did before when I
touched her down there. She wore a pair of panties that I’d never seen before.
They didn’t match her bra, but that was maybe because it was a sports bra.
The light changed and I turned, heading down the freeway
toward my house.
“Thanks for coming over.”
My house was dark. Dark as hers had been. My mom’s car
was there. I heard Otis bark as I climbed up the steps.
My mom didn’t get up when I came in. Normally, she liked
me to come in and say goodnight to her, and usually I did, unless I was too
wasted or something. Then I’d just holler from the hallway that I was home. But
now, completely sober, I couldn’t stand the idea of seeing my mom. Felt like I
had Hallie all over me.
Hallie sitting on the stupid dryer, saying oh
god and I don’t know what it was, but I just felt crazy and I wanted to go
down on her, something she’d never allowed before. The dryer, of all things,
made this the perfect access, too, with my height, but when I ducked my head
down, she wasn’t having it.
She pushed off the dryer and then we were on the cold
concrete floor and I was a little pissed.
Another goddamn rule.
But I was on top of her now, and she was grabbing me
through my jeans and I didn’t care.
“That’s good.”
My head totally spinning with that. What had I been
doing? Was she talking about my boner? I didn’t know what was going on. But
she’d just handed me a condom and that was that.
Then, when I was about to come, she said, “Don’t
stop.” Like she knew it was almost over. That I couldn’t stop. And I
didn’t know if it was still good. I couldn’t ask her, either. But I didn’t stop.
Then her eyes closed and it seemed like something important was happening, but
by then I was coming anyway and it was all so much, so awesome and feeling so
good and she was so beautiful and everything felt better than I remembered it
so I couldn’t stop myself from saying it, again, words I hadn’t said in weeks:
“God, I love you so much.”
Then I squeezed her so hard, in case she didn’t get it.
That I’d said it. But she didn’t say anything. Her eyes were closed. There was
a pink sock right by her head, curled into a ball.
I lifted off her a bit. Felt the grit from the concrete
on my palms. Hallie’s eyes still closed, like she was pretending to be dead or
something. The second I pulled out of her, her breathing start to get back to
normal, and then I noticed how cold the room was. And quiet, except for my
words echoing in my head:
“God I love you so much.”
Just remembering saying that made me feel sick.
In my room, Otis jumped on my bed. Too tense to sleep, I
took off my shirt and did some push-ups. Laid there again until Otis jumped
down to lick my face. Waited to hear my mom call for me. She sometimes did
that, after all my moving around woke her fully up.
But tonight, nothing. The whole house was still. I could
hear the water heater shrieking down the hall from me.
Hallie, putting her clothes back on. Me, tying the condom
in a knot over the utility sink, then wrapping it in the dryer sheet she gave
me. Hallie, slipping the whole white ball into my hoodie pocket. Like it was a
souvenir. A present. Like it was Tupperware I’d brought to a party and she
wanted to make sure it went home with me.
Then she handed me my hoodie.
“Thanks for coming over.”
I stared at her. A bit of hair was caught in the neck of
her T-shirt. I wanted to pick it out, but I couldn’t move. Because I hated her
so much. Loved her so much. Wished I had her naked boob pictures, so I could
send them to everyone I knew in the world. But she’d been too smart for that,
which made me hate her more. Loved how she smelled, how she felt. Hated the
little white ball of cum in my pocket.
“My parents could be back any minute now,” she said.
“They don’t even know I’m home yet. You should probably go.”
Dumb as a dog, I walked back through the dark house,
following her as she turned on a few lights here and there. Then I slid open
the glass door, not even saying good-bye, and stepped into my own footprints in
the snow on the deck, half full of more snow now, since it was snowing again,
thin streams of flakes as I reversed the trip, cutting through the same
backyards, the same little park, the duck ditch covered in snow. Before I got
in my car, I chucked the dryer sheet condom into a snowbank. It didn’t even
make a sound, and the little dimple where it landed filled up soon enough.
Little condom-print, vanished.
