Author Cory Taylor takes us on a frank and funny journey in Me and Mr. Booker: this story of a teenaged girl’s - Martha’s - seduction by a man twice her age has dark, precocious humor, but it cautions us about the relationships grown-ups suffer through their entire lives. It’s brutally honest,but also unsupported by strong adult presence, or any kind of responsible guidance for the youngster at her moment of need.

Ms. Taylor aims to amuse, and maybe obliquely to instruct, but this is a sixteen year-old girl's monologue. We observe adult failings through her very jaundiced eye, and rue the fact that she’s simply following in their footsteps. The sex she enjoys with university lecturer Mr. Booker proves quite the narcotic, but in the end she must give him up when she gets ready to leave her own studies and go to Paris. Her mother sets a very poor example of whom to marry, and her other women friends are a jaded, dissipated lot.

In short, I found very little to admire or enjoy here. I like the spunky wit of our underage heroine, but its caustic sophistication stands as just another reminder of her corruption. It’s clearly a very painful coming of age for Martha, complete with the sadder-but-wiser end. I can’t recommend this, although Ms. Taylor’s powers are apparent. I’d look forward to her treatment of different subject matter with great interest.

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I didn't care for this book, which is disappointing because I really thought it would be better.

Usually I'm not terribly bothered by books in which nothing much happens but I did actually find this one boring and, in the first half, overly repetitive in terms of the content: Martha and Mr Booker go and have sex; then they have sex again somewhere else; then they sneak off and have sex ... it's dull.

By the second half, things improve for a bit but ultimately the book never manages to free itself from its own stagnation. It is emotionally thin and not in the deliberate self-aware way of other books I've read (and love).

I gave this one more of an effort because I own it, but it got read more because I was in bed with post-Migraine exhaustion. That said, it's well written and not actively terrible, so I'm going to give it 2 stars. ( )

This is the story of a sixteen year old girl with a very troubled family life who falls in love and has an affair with a 30 something married man.

The tale is well told and well written, but disturbing in many elements. Why did no one in Martha's life object to this affair? Not only does an affair with a married man seem acceptable, but a sixteen year old's affair seems to be no one's business but her own. Odd. And why was there no real outrage when her father hit her? Granted the man is mentally ill, so maybe it's just par for the course, but it just seems like there should have been more.

It is a troubling tale, and ended a bit abruptly for my taste> A worthwhile read, but at least in the end it appears Martha has learned from it. ( )

Me and Mr Booker, Cory Taylor’s first novel, has been described as a coming of age novel. Martha is sixteen and tells people she is emotionally scarred from her parents’ marriage break-up. She considers her unemployed (and seemingly unemployable) father, Victor, mad, and in a frightening rather than an amusing way. Her mother, Jessica, a teacher, throws parties every weekend to ward off the boredom and loneliness of weekends, and her older brother Eddie is away in New Guinea. In this dysfunctional atmosphere, Martha finds herself waiting for something to happen in her life. As luck will have it, that something is Mr Booker: English, sophisticated, charming and impossible to resist, despite the fact that he comes complete with a wife. Very little is learned about Mr Booker (and never his first name) until the last chapter: the very last line of the book reveals much. Taylor expertly captures the feel of the dull country town, the sense of boredom and even hopelessness. She lets us inside the mind of a sixteen-year-old girl, one who feels “old” because of her parents’ attitude and the way men have started to look at her. Her affair with Mr Booker seems inevitable, and Taylor builds the tension throughout the book, giving the reader a sense of “this can’t end well”. This tension is regularly eased by the witty repartee between the characters. As well as this, Victor’s delusions and his letters to Jessica, full of inappropriately grandiloquent language, are quite a source of humour. Some of his later letters are, unintentionally, truly hilarious. Taylor gives us believable characters and authentic dialogue. As we join Martha’s journey towards adulthood and maturity, it is hard not to hope she finds her way without too much heartbreak. The last page, a touching ending, has the reader wondering who really has the power over whom? Me and Mr Booker is funny, sexy, moving: altogether a great read. Let us hope Cory Taylor has more like this one to share with her readers. ( )

Me and Mr Booker, Cory Taylor’s first novel, has been described as a coming of age novel. Martha is sixteen and tells people she is emotionally scarred from her parents’ marriage break-up. She considers her unemployed (and seemingly unemployable) father, Victor, mad, and in a frightening rather than an amusing way. Her mother, Jessica, a teacher, throws parties every weekend to ward off the boredom and loneliness of weekends, and her older brother Eddie is away in New Guinea. In this dysfunctional atmosphere, Martha finds herself waiting for something to happen in her life. As luck will have it, that something is Mr Booker: English, sophisticated, charming and impossible to resist, despite the fact that he comes complete with a wife. Very little is learned about Mr Booker (and never his first name) until the last chapter: the very last line of the book reveals much. Taylor expertly captures the feel of the dull country town, the sense of boredom and even hopelessness. She lets us inside the mind of a sixteen-year-old girl, one who feels “old” because of her parents’ attitude and the way men have started to look at her. Her affair with Mr Booker seems inevitable, and Taylor builds the tension throughout the book, giving the reader a sense of “this can’t end well”. This tension is regularly eased by the witty repartee between the characters. As well as this, Victor’s delusions and his letters to Jessica, full of inappropriately grandiloquent language, are quite a source of humour. Some of his later letters are, unintentionally, truly hilarious. Taylor gives us believable characters and authentic dialogue. As we join Martha’s journey towards adulthood and maturity, it is hard not to hope she finds her way without too much heartbreak. The last page, a touching ending, has the reader wondering who really has the power over whom? Me and Mr Booker is funny, sexy, moving: altogether a great read. Let us hope Cory Taylor has more like this one to share with her readers. ( )