It's taken me a few weeks to process this book - and still, I'm not quite sure whether to give this one star or four. I'm settling on two, because Sumell is certainly a talented writer, some of it made me laugh out loud, and it touches on a topic I'm deeply interested in (and know too much about, unfortunately): the death of a parent. Sumell does a particularly good job of illustrating family dynamics before and after the loss of his mother (not a spoiler; you learn this in the first few pages) - how some people change and some stay the same, some become better people because of their grief, others become worse. I lost my father at 23, and something very few people warned me about was how different my entire family would become after his death. It's as if we no longer had a center, and Sumell does a really good job of demonstrating how the loss of his mother impacted him individually and collectively as a family.

The main character in Making Nice is Alby, and frankly, he's the reason I would give this one star. I hated this character for so many reasons. He's disgusting and crass and crude and gross and doesn't do anything that's the least bit charming or endearing throughout this entire book.

But let me tell you about a scene with Alby that made me feel ALL THE RAGE. I almost stopped reading the book because of it (and probably would have had I not felt an obligation to continue and review because I received an ARC from Goodreads). Our Alby is making out with a girl at a bar - maybe it was a friend of a girlfriend's friend, someone he knew vaguely but definitely not his girlfriend - and takes her home. They continue making out, etc. This gal (which truly, I have no idea how someone like Alby ever convinced anyone to make out with him) continues to tell him that she doesn't want to have sex. Alby keeps trying to "slip it in" (without protection, of course) and she continues to tell him that she doesn't want to have sex and he keeps trying to "slip it in" anyway until she finally is too drunk or tired of protesting or whatever and then Alby is victorious because she gives in and they have unprotected sex and the way he writes about his success makes me want to vomit. Oh good grief I'm feeling so rageful again writing about this. You know what? I don't even know how to rate this. It makes me so angry that a writer would create a character who could write so flippantly about non-consensual sex and make it seem as though NOTHING was wrong with it. There are going to be guys, old and young, who read this and think "oh yeah, I've done that before, heh" and girls who read this and think "I want to scream and punch someone in the jaw because I've had guys do that before and this male writer is writing about this with no care in the world, like it's totally not assault to ignore a girl who says no because I'll just slip it in and then she agrees right?"

Maybe this is more of an issue for me than I realized. Yeah, I can't give this one three stars. Because this isn't the only time Alby completely disparages women, it happens throughout the entire book. It reminded me a little of [a:Charles Bukowski|13275|Charles Bukowski|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1387554724p2/13275.jpg]'s work, which also gives me the rage due to his treatment of female characters.

I have a feeling guys are going to like this one, but I wonder how females will react. I was going to write this really introspective response linking to this article by Jim Shepard about redemption of characters in Flannery O'Connor's work but after processing the scene above, I just can't give it that level of respect just now.

So, in conclusion: Sumell is talented, but read this one at your own risk.