Maladaptation

by L.A. Fields

Sixteen-year-old Marley Kurtz is an incurable bookworm who is sent to a program for maladapted youth in Loweville, Colorado after his parents discover he has been having an affair with a man forty-three years his senior. Once there, Marley befriends the wry yet optimistic Missy, who is fifteen and pregnant in the lowest town on earth, and falls in love with Jesse, an ice-eyed sociopath with an outlaw for a father and a corpse for a mother. As the stress of the summer causes Marley s physical and mental health to decline, it is unclear which of his new friends has the worst influence on him, or whether the instruction of a small town s Baptist-run therapy group will do more harm than good to everyone involved.

Genres: M M Romance, Young Adult, LGBT, Contemporary, Gay, Fiction

236 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2009

About the author

Cat person, MFA, author of The Disorder Series (Rebel Satori Press), the Lambda Literary Award finalists My Dear Watson and Homo Superiors (Lethe Press), as well as works of scholarship, short fiction, and erotica.

Reviews

[Anna (Bananas) · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars
The strength of this book is the author's ability to make you understand all the characters, how they think, why they act as they do. It's a truly engaging study in character.
There are multiple POVs, as in 10, by my count. That's a lot for a short book.
Many of the characters came off as either victims or villains. Jesse, the child of a murderer who waited days to report his mother's death (for a very specific reason), was by far the most interesting. Marley, on the other hand, was too passive to earn my sympathy. I liked the pregnant teen, Missy, who unapologetically wants to abandon her baby and her life, and also Joe, Jesse's uncle, who accepts everything with the ease of a saint. I wanted to murder the bigoted Karen and the cruel counselor, Dr. Tom.
Such is life though. Some people you love. Some...not so much.

[Manuela · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not an easy book to read, because it deals with serious subjects like isolation, homophobia, self-harm, desperation. The author does a great job in showing how difficult life can be for young kids who are failed by the adults who should love them and take care of them. In spite of that, there is also a sense of hope that comes out from the story, especially for Marley and Jesse.

[Betryal · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found the story disturbing yet interesting in its own way. It's this little town with what I would refer to as this little cult that uses their own means to try and 'correct' teenagers who do not meet their parents expectations, but more like this: The child unlike the previous book I read 'Bootcamp' where the children were tossed by their parents for misbehaving in their eyes, the teens in this book were different. This book was an easier read and even easier to stomach and follow. The parents tossed the kids out to foster parents who kept eye on them while they went to meets and had to follow rules, but weren't not subjected that I could see to physical punishment. The punishment was more to affecting their psych. For instance, the one boy that this story was mainly about named Marley had his boxes of books taken away because they were blasphemous, evil in content and were corruptive to a healthy mind.

Take away my books and I'd rip the gorge outta your throat.

The story consists of different children and diff reasons for them being in this town and tossed out like they were leaches, freaks, diabolical and condemnable in the eyes of God. All hokey if you ask me, but you be the judge and jury.

What I'd like to see is a follow up to this story. I'm not saying the ending, but I was pleased with the outcome to this and I'd like to know where this teens are now and what might have became of them. :zipping my lips: T'is all I'm saying.

[Leaf of Absence]

Cowboy Dan's a major player in the cowboy scene, he drives to the reservation, drinks and gets mean. He goes to the desert, fires a rifle in the sky and says God if I have to die, you will have to die-i-ey-i-ey.


*sigh*