I don't understand the author's choice to include such graphic description of sex between teenagers. What was the reason ? How does it advance the plot to know in exact details? The sex is not the problem, teens have sex, I understand. But why make the scene so detailed ? Why make it porn-like?

What's more is this teen sexualizing his dad, wondering if the sex he is having on a bench will leave marks on his butt. It feels weird to read, to say the least.

I've read through the reviews here and haven't found one that mentions the first few pages as being problematic, although some people used the word crude to describe the writing style.

I gave the book two chances, but the first fifteen pages are a no-no and I couldn't and wouldn't get past them.
If you have an answer, please enlighten me.

I really enjoyed this book. Karim is relatable and hilarious, and Kureishi is an excellent writer. This is a fun journey through London and the surrounding ‘burbs in the 1970s (I ended up making a playlist to pair with it), and Kureishi weaves issues around race into the story in a really natural, sometimes surprising way which is both refreshing and insightful.

didn’t expect to be doxxed in the first few chapters … had to double take at the specific mentions of the chatterton arms, bromley high street, and VICTORIA ROAD???
very strange book; excited to see how it is adapted for stage in a couple of weeks

It's Catcher in the Rye for 1960's (70's?) London; a little brother named Allie, a sexual awakening both including and brought about by more than a few strippers; an unfulfilling and crisis-driven trip to New York and immediately back home, too soon; a job or two done poorly but thoroughly; an introspective, confused, critically bad-choice-making teenager from the suburbs using the city to find his way to himself, even when it means messing up over and over again, because there's no way to ever make it "right." Really interesting and really funny and lots of sex and honesty and young people fears and so, so, so many shitty choices. Crying worthy and wonderful and enlightening in a weirdly Whitman-Esque way.

** I decided to add this to my Books to Read in your Twenties list after I read it and wrote the review. I think a good age group for this book is late teens ie 18/19-early twenties.**

Soooooo...I don't know. It's written well and there are moments where you laugh or gasp or think to y ourself..huh, yea. However, I think more than not I thought, ugh...really? And mainly because while I'm not a prude it was far too sexually explicit for me. Some of it, maybe a lot of it, made sense but it still felt like really, do I really need to know? Couldn't you say that without Saying That?!?! And the thing is that even though it does get better and it does, I mean half way through chapter 2 I thought, well this is crap. So even though it gets better and there's progress, there's not enough. Maybe I'm too old, but I wanted someone anyone to have finally grown up someone to have finally got themselves together, and I think the closest person that that happens to is the narrator's mum. But everyone is soo far gone and sooo messed up that I feel bad for them, pity, because as you think they are getting closer to make things better its as if all they are really doing is accepting what has happened or what will be. I think it's the kind of book you should read when you are messed up, when things do suck because you get it, you understand it, you're in it! But to read it when you are past all that, instead of feeling like yea I get you man, you think man you are so screwed up. As well as it was written and as much as he said some things that I thought were great, I'm more happy that it's over than that I read it. Maybe I'm just too old for it.