Dirty Liar [Hardcover]

Brian James (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 2006

A heartbreaking breakthrough novel about coming to grips with a tortured past from acclaimed PUSH novelist Brian James

Benji has to escape his home. His mother's boyfriend has crossed the line, and Benji can't deal with it anymore. So he leaves behind everything he knows to go live with his father and stepmother in Portland. His stepmother is nice, but he doesn't trust her. His father is testy, refusing to trust Benji. And Benji ... he's just trying not to self-destruct.

In this spellbinding novel, Brian James surpasses his previous work to take his place among Adam Rapp, Melvin Burgess, and Kevin Brooks on the razor's edge of teen literature.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 8 Up–Benji moves in with his emotionally distant father and well-meaning stepmother, Janet, to escape his alcoholic mothers boyfriends sexual abuse. Unfortunately, he cant escape his demons. He spends his days at his Oregon high school scribbling his misery in notebooks and getting stoned with other misfits. His only hopeful thoughts are of Lacie, the troubled girl he left behind. These feelings become conflicted when he is attracted to Rianna, a popular girl from a poor family who works hard to achieve the goals set by her parents. Benjis inner turmoil, though authentic to his situation, grows tiresome, and the plot becomes mired in overwritten self-flagellation. Jamess female characters shine; Rianna and Lacie are both sharply drawn in relatively few strokes. Earnest, levelheaded Janet is the unlikely heroine, and her gentle absolution when Benji confesses his abuse defies centuries of stepmother stereotyping. This poignant climactic scene is masterfully written and points the story smoothly to its satisfying, uplifting conclusion. Unfortunately, the narratives lulling pace and somber mood may put teens off before they reach these triumphant last pages. Though less subtle than Kathleen Jeffrie Johnsons Target (Millbrook, 2003), Jamess portrait of male post-rape depression is heartbreaking and believable.–Johanna Lewis, New York Public Library
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Gr. 9-12. Benji (also known as Dogboy) has a riveting story. It is written in hard, first-person language, and there is fear and drugs and cursing and more fear, but it is also deeply poetic. Benji has moved from his alcoholic mother's trailer--but more important away from her abusive boyfriend--to live with his distant and controlling father and his wife. Benji, who keeps a journal to try to name and define his demons, calls both his former girlfriend and Rianna, the new girl he clings to, his angels. He hopes that somehow, in some way, they will save him. Benji has to save himself, but it is the open and gentle persistence of his stepmother, and the realization that Rianna, too, has demons to fight, that allow him to do so. Powerful, compelling, and, in the end, almost sweet. GraceAnne DeCandido
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 15 and up
  
• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Push (February 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0439796237
• ISBN-13: 978-0439796231
• Product Dimensions: 7.2 x 5.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,945,313 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I grew up outside of Philadelphia, a town I portrayed all my thoughts and feelings about in Pure Sunshine and the short story Filthadelphia. When I was eighteen, I moved to New York City where I stayed for ten years. You can read about my impressions of that city in both Tomorrow, Maybe and Thief. For the suburban experiences of my life, check out Perfect World and Dirty Liar.

Needless to say, ten years in Manhattan is more than enough. It was time to pack up and head for the peace and quiet of the middle of nowhere. Alas, I ended up in the Woodstock area of upstate New York. An area aptly portrayed in my book Zombie Blondes.

My fascination with writing started in childhood with the notion of making up stories. I loved action figures as a kid. Actually, I still do and still collect them. But as a child, I would set up my entire bedroom like the stage for one epic story that I would play out for days. I didn't know it at the time, but it was the basis for what I do now. I was also a stuffed animal kid. I had dozens and they all had names and they all personalities. Basically, they were characters. Writing isn't very different than playing. It's just a grown up way of doing it.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Honest and engrossing, February 24, 2006

By 

Teenreads.com (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dirty Liar (Hardcover)

Fans of Brian James's books are not drawn to his writing for its evocative and intricate sentence structure, or for the promise of a complex story arc with completely original characters. You won't find either of those things in James's work. Instead, what you will find is a staccato, ragged telling of an everyday character and his or her everyday problems that spills into a narrative so emotionally raw and uncomfortably powerful that you can't help but feel changed by reading it.

His latest, DIRTY LIAR, traverses much of the same territory that his previous novels do --- love, heartache, drug usage, alienation and feeling misunderstood, familial dysfunction --- but, as with all writers who capitalize on their own familiar subject matters, he travels the terrain well. Again, it is not so much what James writes about, but how he does it that will endear readers to the story.

At first, Benji seems like the typical "un-cool" teenage boy --- reserved, eyes downcast, closed off to the world. He wears his long hair in front of his face to hide his eyes and his clothes are scruffy, non-descript and neutral. His one close friend, Sean, appears to want to spend time with him (at least he doesn't ignore him), while the others at school are content to let him blend unnoticed into their scenery. There's even a girl at school he likes from afar, Rianna, who pays no attention to him until the day she does, which makes the plot thicken, if only predictably so in that misunderstood-boy-gets-saved-by-the-popular-girl-who-suddenly-decides-to-talk-to-him way.

What makes Benji's story different is his mother's drinking and her boyfriend's verbally and sexually abusive behavior; his father's cold disapproval of him despite his stepmother's weak attempts to bring the family together; and his incessant talk of demons that threaten to squash any form of self-confidence he might have had before the divorce, before the move to Portland to live with his father, and before the moment when he became so disgusted with being alive. What makes Benji's struggle so authentic is the way his thoughts are constantly racing and so glaringly honest; the way his self-awareness is so fragile and mutable; and the fact that deep down, he truly wants his life to get better, despite his inability to get past the hate and fear that he feels on a day-to-day basis.

It is clear from his no-holds-barred portrayal of Benji's self-loathing and intense distrust of those around him that James is no stranger to the world of teen angst. Although some of the scenes he describes are a tad too melodramatic or contrived to be believable, his unrelenting push to get all of the messy and vulnerable moments that come with being a teenager down on the page is what makes the book worthwhile. He deals with sexual abuse with a creepy candor that will surely make readers' skin crawl, but some may argue that the appeal of the book is exactly the frankness with which he deals with taboo subjects. All in all, an engrossing read to add to your collection.

--- Reviewed by Alexis Burling

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent presentation of attitude and emotion, May 29, 2008

By 

Trixie "Trixie" (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dirty Liar (Hardcover)

A unique and "fun" thing about Brian James' books are that his characters seem to pop up in later works. This book is a companion to his earlier book Perfect World, in which Benji, (the main character in this book) was the boyfriend of the main character in Perfect World. This book appropriately displays the attitude and emotions of an angry, neglected and sexually abused teenage boy. The mix of anger and pain overshadows every page, and does so in a way that is not recycled "teenage angst" about normal, petty high school things. Similar to his other books, Dirty Liar gives the reader a realistic, uncensored story that might have already happened somewhere out there. This book would be good for abused teenage boys to read and realte to.