I'm still questioning my desire to give this 5 stars because I don't see myself willing to reread this. I'll leave it for now.But this book had me riled up in so many different ways. Despite the fact that I ended the story not necessarily liking any of the characters, I was fully invested in the story and it brought out so much emotions in me-even if those emotions mostly fell on anger and frustration with the situations and the way the characters choose to deal with them. I felt intense empathy for Robert and his mom who have been saddled with the burden of his dying father (who has never been a good husband or father) for several years now and an overly intervening family. Their circumstances hit close to home for me and the resulting conflict takes over a good half of the book. I also just have to add that his aunts disgusted me. Let's not even mention Stephen. Selfish little prick.
I also felt intense frustration and dislike towards Andrew for much of the book regarding how he dealt with his ex-wife and Stephen, but once (view spoiler) I started feeling just sorry for him. In the end, I was glad they both got the endings they both deserved even though I don't necessarily root for either of them as individual characters.
I realize this doesn't really feel like a really positive review even though I really did like the book lol and I'm glad I got to read this. I give credit to the author for tackling such a controversial topic and keeping things relatively realistic (only Robert's fan club and his relationship with Nic seemed OTT). I like the fact that the author didn't try to push any agenda on us on the ethics of relationships between students and teachers and I still reserve my own judgments, though this will definitely give you some new perspectives and considerations. Her other novel, Don't Let Me Go, completely failed for me (I went off on a mini rant on it) and even though I only found the character of Luke absolutely annoying then, I am interested from the little tidbits about he and Curtis so looking forward to their story.
Sooo....would I recommend this? If you're curious at all about the topic and how it can be handled (and overall, I was impressed on how it -was- handled), I would definitely recommend trying this.
