Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley. I was not compensated in any other fashion for the review and the opinions reflected below are entirely my own. Special thanks to the publisher and author for providing the copy.
Lo·li·to
/lōˈlētō/
noun
Masculine variation of Lolita, from the 1955 novel by Vladimir Nabokov. A young male who is perceived as sexually precocious and attractive to an older person.
Etgar spends most of his time watching gory videos and porn on the internet and wasting time with his friends and his girlfriend, Alice. When Etgar discovers that Alice cheated on him, he finds solace in an older woman, Macy, whom he meets in a sex chatroom.
I enjoyed the non-linear chapters with flashbacks to Etgar’s past experiences. It really helped illustrate his character and explain the motives for his sometimes still-inexplicable actions. Etgar is not a likable or sympathetic character by any means. In this way, he is similar to Lo in this manner. However, despite (or maybe because of) hating him, the story is well-paced and intriguing, so the pages kept turning.
This book differs from Lolita in that it is told from the perspective of the young male rather than that of the older partner. It shows a perspective which is sympathetic to Macy.
Although I am a social justice warrior in regards to this topic, I won’t expound on the psychosocial implications of consent and statutory rape, nor will I discuss the double standards of sex and age for men and women (although I did find it laughable that Etgar also cheated but doesn’t think it counts because Alice didn’t find out). I won’t debate the problematic nature of those things because Lolito is strikingly different from Lolita - at 15 Etgar hovers right on the age of consent for most countries and is already full of sexual experience. Thus Macy’s actions are not as comparable to Humbert’s fantasies of a 12-year-old girl, although I would not go so far as to defend her.
What I will mention is that this book contains an unacceptable amount of animal abuse and gore, which I am not a fan of at all. It didn’t add to the story and it didn’t need to be described so thoroughly. I feel like Brooks added it only for shock factor and it not only deeply disturbed me but detracted from my experience.