Susan says: I put this book on hold after reading a bibliography of books written about teacher-student relationships, and as those go (and compared to Boy Toy) this is pretty tame. Connor is a high school graduate, although not quite 18, when he begins a love affair with his teacher. This is a short book, and as such the affair doesn't start until almost 2/3rds of the way through. And the affair is only part of Connor's life - his parents are very screwed up, and I think part of what Johnson is trying to show in this book is that he is a screwed up individual, and so is attracted to other screwed up people too - the teacher is a drug addict who may be using again because of her guilt over the affair. And Connor, unlike most teenage boys, tells her he loves her almost right away. I think this book is salacious, but not exactly revelatory. And I was sort of left disappointed by it like I felt it could have been told in a longer novel and then would have been more satisifying, There is sex and sex talk in this book but little drugs and alcohol, although Connor's parents are alcoholics. ( )

Nobody's ever been there for Connor. He grew up with alcoholic parents whom he could never trust to put him before the booze. Now living with his Aunt Syl.

Suddenly, there's Ms Timms. Corinna. Once his teacher, now something much more. Even though he's seventeen and she thirty-one, this is love. He knows it. Has Connor finally found the one person who will always stay? Corinna is a conundrum but that really doesn't matter. What matters is what Connor feels about the relationship. He sees in it his salvation, his chance to be first in someone's, anyone's heart.

What he doesn't realize is that his aunt, his friends, and even his next-door neighbors are a kind of assembled family who all love him and watch out for him. But he insists on holding them at arm's length, scrupulously repaying his aunt for any money she spends on him and resisting his best friend's efforts to understand what's going on.

Don't go into this book expecting a salacious tale of clandestine molestation. Instead, prepare yourself for a story about a young man learning that love comes in many forms, and the one that seems obvious isn't the one that's going to stay. ( )