As much as Tampa is so awfully disturbing, it’s actually incredibly smart and well written. There’s a reason why this has gained the popularity it has. It’s so upsetting at at times you can’t help but laugh at just how truly atrocious it all is. I think a book of this nature does well because it actually says, well fuck it, I’m going there and I’m exposing the sick cultural truths of our society. 

About 60% through this I wanted to tap out, it was no longer about some deeply unwell woman rubbing herself all over her classroom and bringing a bag of wine to bed, it was just flat out disgusting and awful. But? You know what? You shouldn’t enjoy a book like this, so I think the author actually did a great job of making the reader just so wildly uncomfortable and revolted enough to say “maybe I just can’t do this.”

I had trouble with some of the discrepancies on how boys of this age would actually act, particularly later on the book. As the relationship continued, the maturation of the main victim tended to accelerate to an unbelievable maturity which made the relationship seem more consensual than it actually was - which was peculiar given the storyline. 

This is provocative because someone had the iron clad ovaries to write a character that has you thinking about the way that we protect beauty over ethics as a society (and much, much more). 

Tampa reminds us that the devil does in fact wear Prada. 

3.5/5