Boy Toy

by Barry Lyga

Overview

Josh Mendel has a secret. Unfortunately, everyone knows what it is.
   Five years ago, Josh’s life changed. Drastically. And everyone in his school, his town—seems like the world—thinks they understand. But they don’t—they can’t. And now, about to graduate from high school, Josh is still trying to sort through the pieces. First there’s Rachel, the girl he thought he’d lost years ago. She’s back, and she’s determined to be part of his life, whether he wants her there or not.Then there are college decisions to make, and the toughest baseball game of his life coming up, and a coach who won’t stop pushing Josh all the way to the brink. And then there’s Eve. Her return brings with it all the memories of Josh’s past. It’s time for Josh to face the truth about what happened.
   If only he knew what the truth was . . .

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780547348988
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	04/16/2024
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	421
Sales rank:	333,631
Lexile:	720L (what's this?)
File size:	601 KB
Age Range:	12 - 18 Years

About the Author

Barry Lyga is a recovering comic book geek and the author of many books, including The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl, Goth Girl Rising, Boy Toy, and Hero-Type for HMH, Wolverine: Worst Day Ever for Marvel Books, and Archvillian for Scholastic. He has also written comic books about everything from sword-wielding nuns to alien revolutionaries. He worked as marketing manager at Diamond Comic Distributers for ten years. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.Visit Barry online at www.barrylyga.com.

Read an Excerpt

Ten Things I Learned at the Age of Twelve
1. The Black Plague was transmitted by fleas that were carried throughout Europe by rats.
2. If you first paralyze it, you can cut open a frog and watch its lungs continue to inflate and deflate.
3. There are seven forms of the verb to be: am, being, been, is, was, were, and are.
4. In order to divide fractions, you invert the divisor to arrive at the reciprocal, which is then multiplied by the dividend. (Mixed fractions must first be converted to improper fractions.) 5. In Salem, the witches weren’t burned at the stake—they were pressed to death under big rocks . . . or hanged.
6. Islam was founded in the year 610. It is the third of three world religions worshiping the same God.
7. Each point on a “coordinate plane” (created by the joining of an x-axis and a y-axis) can be described by an ordered pair of numbers.
8. “Monotheism” is a belief system centered on a single deity, while “polytheism” subscribes to belief in multiple deities.
9. The area of a circle can be determined by using the formula pr2, where r is the radius of the circle.
10. How to please a woman.

Editorial Reviews

In a culture so saturated with sex, where 16-year-old Jamie Lynn Spears's pregnancy is common knowledge to fifth graders, what are teenagers to make of this book? What Lyga gives only glimpses of, through Josh's difficulty connecting to Rachel (or almost anyone else in his life), is the collateral damage caused by child abuse. Still, the novel vividly explores the gray areas between love, lust, right and wrong. Josh has nearly convinced himself that he bears the responsibility for the affair with Eve, rather than the other way round—until he's finally able to end that chapter for good. Boy Toy is an unsettling read, but that's exactly what it ought to be.
—The New York Times

Jack Martin

Striking out on a baseball bet forces a teen to face past emotional scars. At age 13, Joshua Mendel's history teacher, Eve Sherman, molested him for three weeks and changed the rest of his life. Five years later, the 18-year-old baseball star is preparing to graduate and working on restoring his damaged relationship with Rachel, a childhood crush. When Sherman is released from prison, Joshua realizes he must confront her in an attempt to gain the answers to the questions that have haunted him for years. Blending present events with extensive flashbacks, Lyga creates a tightly paced narrative that explores psychological turmoil without resorting to either clinical terminology or oversimplification. Authentic and fresh, the narrative voice develops along with Joshua, gaining experience but never overpowering the tortured undertones. Lyga's portrayal of the fight between Joshua and Sherman's husband is riveting and tense; the main character's later reflections on that confrontation are equally powerful. Deftly weaving together a painful confession and ambiguous ending, Lyga's dynamic writing style creates an emotionally wrenching and haunting tale. (Fiction. YA)

Kirkus Reviews

[S]uccessful...character development...Lyga's cast feels very real, and he knows how to play them against each other. —Booklist, ALA "Lyga creates a tightly paced narrative...Authentic and fresh...Lyga's dynamic writing style creates an emotionally wrenching and haunting tale." — Kirkus Reviews, Starred "Lyga again skillfully captures the turbulent world of high school...expertly woven humor...a powerful message."—VOYA, teen reviewer, October 2007 VOYA (Voice of Youth Advocates) "Heavy stuff, but Lyga...pulls it off brilliantly...Sure to be a controversial and influential read."—KLIATT, September 2007 "Lyga's skillful writing subtly reveals...in a way that older teens will find fascinating, distressing, and worthy of their attention." — School Library Journal, Starred "[R]eaders drawn by the provocative subject matter may likely find themselves thinking more seriously about the truth behind the ribald humor." — Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books "Lyga gives a moving account of innocence lost." —Newsday "[A] astounding portrayal of what it is like to be the young male victim." —The Chicago Tribune "[R]eaders will be fully engaged." — Library Media Connection —

From the Publisher