Written when Cathy Coote was nineteen, Innocents is a. Innocents Bookreader Item Preview remove-circle Share or Embed This Item. I realized it's because there's a bit more going on in Tampa-we see just how selfish Celeste Price is, going so far to prioritize her relationship over calling 911 upon witnessing someone collapsing from a heart attack! It also succeeded in making me chuckle at a few darkly-comedic lines.Īnyway, Innocents is Coote's only published novel, and I wonder if she would've improved, story-wise, had she ever released another. But when the perpetrator is a sixteen-year-old schoolgirl, is she culpable Learn More about the Book. Written when Cathy Coote was nineteen, Innocents is a taut, wickedly clever descent into the anatomy of an obsession, the debut of a precociously assured. I found myself wondering why I liked that one a bit more. Then I remembered Alissa Nutting's Tampa, another explicit book about an inappropriate student-teacher relationship, which I gave 3/5. The only other person I recall her interacting with (besides the group of girls at the start, who, like her aunt and uncle, we never hear about again) was with another male teacher her lover personally knows (and seems jealous by their friendship).

We never hear from her aunt and uncle again after she moves out and with her teacher. This girl doesn't seem to have a social life whatsoever, not even when she attends a new school. I was expecting something more psychological, rather than erotica, because that's all that seems to happen throughout this 200+ page novel-the nameless protagonist recounts, scenario after scenario, of all the times she'd find a way to seduce her older lover (mostly by babyfying herself interestingly, this was published in the late '90s, long before Tumblr adopted the infamous 'nymphet' aesthetic), him getting aroused, and the two having sex. | Epistolary fiction.Going into this, I knew it would be about a sexual relationship between a 16-year-old girl and her teacher. Originally published: Australia : Random House Australia, 1999. It permanently unsettles our notions of innocence, experience, and power, and suggests that we are all culpable.'-BOOK JACKET. But when the perpetrator is a sixteen-year-old schoolgirl, is she culpable? And if the victim is her thirty-four-year-old teacher, shouldn't he have known better? Unforgettable, disturbing, and morally complex, Innocents takes us on a journey into the darker side of desire. Forcing someone vulnerable and naive into a sexual relationship is perverted, even evil. 'Innocents is a taut, wickedly clever descent into the anatomy of an obsession, the debut of a precociously assured young literary voice. New York : Grove Press : Distributed by Publishers Group West, 1999

Innocents by cathy coote