Sometimes when there is a book that everyone is talking about negatively — and giving good reasons why they’re responding negatively to it — I find myself wanting to do nothing more than actually read that book for myself. Even if it’s not something I’d normally read.

Enter September Girls by Bennett Madison.

Sam, his brother Jeff, and their father are spending the summer away from their home in the Northeast and at the Outer Banks in North Carolina. It’s been a rough year for the family. Sam’s mom recently decided to abandon them in order to find herself in Woman Land. According to Sam, she’d gotten some ideas from Facebook and Farmville and something called the SCUM Manifesto and needed to get away for a while. Sam’s dad is kind of there and not there at the same time. Part of it is the fact he’s just been abandoned by his long-time wife with two boys, of course. Part of why he wants to get away is to give him bonding time with his kids and to give Sam specifically the opportunity to have that one last summer of freedom. And Jeff, who is the older brother, is bent on making sure Sam has the kind of summer he will never forget. The Outer Banks is filled with amazing, gorgeous, luscious, and available girls. Jeff sees this as Sam’s opportunity to lose his virginity and do so without the messy strings that can happen with relationships.

Plus, that’s Jeff’s plan anyway.

The girls in this summer place are indeed magical. They all look similar to one another, and they’re all gorgeous. Everywhere Sam goes, there’s another beautiful lady, and everywhere he goes, he’s approached by these beautiful ladies. They’re practically throwing themselves at him. But Sam’s not drawn to them for their looks. In fact, he pushes himself not to be drawn to them at all, until he meets Dee Dee. Dee Dee is rough. She’s not pleasant. She talks in one hand about how well she knows the Bible and professes this knowledge through sharing with Sam the names of all of the “hos” in it. He can’t stop caring about her though, even when other girls are clamoring for a slice of his attention.

But what is it about these girls? Why are they so attracted to Sam? Why are they so attractive? And how come they never leave this place?

That’s where this story goes from what many have called a misogynistic tale to one that’s actually quite brilliant. Because these aren’t average girls. These are sirens, and it’s their duty to throw themselves at virgin males in hopes of being released from the spell that forces them to live and dwell and vie for attention in this place. Interspersed within Sam’s story are the songs of the sirens — there’s a little back story into why it is they’re stuck here, into who created them, into their legends. There’s nothing particularly answered about their origin, but that’s sort of the point. They don’t know. All they know are the stories they hear about how they can break free. They call themselves sisters, as well as the Girls. The belief is that it’s through sex with a male virgin, and that’s why so many want Sam. They know.

When Dee Dee suggests that Sam help her Sister break free, telling him it is okay to lose his virginity to another girl in the event it might set her free from the place that is killing her, Sam considers it. But he doesn’t do it. He wrestles with this in part because he wants to help Dee Dee’s sister since Dee Dee wants that, but he wrestles with it, too, since it’s not who he is at his core.

September Girls is about a boy becoming a man.

It is about breaking through this pressures thrust upon teen boys to “become a man.”

It is about learning where your values lie and what your own judgments are in seeing other people and in helping them.

Sam is dealt incredibly mixed messages about women. He’s seen his mother struggle with what it means to be a wife and a mother and feel like her place in the world is something greater than either of those. He’s told by his dad he needs to have a fun summer, and he’s told by his brother that he needs to get laid this summer in order to prove his manhood. Plus, the ladies here are easy. And available. And good looking. And isn’t that all that matters? Dee Dee, too, feeds Sam messages about women and their roles because of what she is and what it is she believes she herself is tied to. She’s a siren. She’s beautiful and ephemeral and she doesn’t get to have the experiences that other women do — not those in magazine advertisements or on television (the Girls choose their names based on what they experience when in the world believing that Commercial Feminized Things are of value) — nor those which the women in the Bible have — that’s why she sees them all as “hos.” Sam’s best friend at home feeds him messages too, as his summer is also about conquest. It’s about reminding Sam that his duty as a man is to become a Man by collecting sexual experiences under his belt and doing so without over thinking it. When Dee Dee tells Sam she should sleep with her sister in order to set her free, that’s the moment Sam realizes his well of feelings for Dee Dee. For their emotional relationship.

And it’s in that moment when he himself is set free.

It’s when he becomes a man.

There’s also a really nice tie in about mirrors and reflections that knot together the real-world elements of Sam’s narrative with those siren songs and legends. Freedom is in facing yourself as you are when you see it and not worrying about the things cast upon you as your destiny.

Madison writes a pretty powerful novel here, and he does so in a way that’s quite jarring. Sam’s not your most likable character, and much of his time is kind of . . . boring. He tells us how much TV he watches. How many walks on the beach he takes. He’s downright crass and his brother is ten times worse. There is no doubt that the language used in this book is hard to read and process and that the messages about women and what their role is in the world is hard to digest. But that is the entire point. This is a book about Sam cutting through those horrible messages society feeds people and figuring out what it is that matters to him. Because the messages that are offensive aren’t just geared toward females. They’re offensive toward men, too. To “be a man,” Sam’s told it’s his duty to sleep with a woman. That even if things look like they’re permanent, women will just leave men if they’re not proving their worth enough (see Sam’s mom).

The mirror is held up to the readers in this book to examine themselves in light of these precise messages, too.

These characters are flawed and those flaws are in your face. And isn’t it telling that readers see those flaws in others and sometimes misses them in themselves?

September Girls definitely has guy appeal, and it’s for those readers who like magical realism and fairy tale. I saw it pitched as a mermaid tale for boys, and that’s a pretty good assessment. There’s definitely female appeal here, too. But while I think what Madison says in this book is really smart and savvy and does precisely the opposite of what many readers are claiming it does (this book spins misogyny on its head by using those messages to make the point), this book wasn’t as satisfying as I hoped. I found it boring at times. The writing is simply okay, and I thought that Sam’s cataloging of his days — while effective to the message — was uninteresting. It felt like this could have used a little more time to become stronger and more compelling, and it’s not necessarily a book I will eagerly pass off to readers. It’s not that it’s bad. It’s just that it’s a bit flat and has a narrow readership who will put in the time and energy to come out with the big take aways. I think some of that is evidenced in reviews around the web — and that’s not a slight on any reader taking the story as they need to, but instead, I think, a sign that the book didn’t necessarily achieve all it set out to through the writing.

“Summer” here is symbolic of adolescence. It’s that time between being fresh and in bloom in spring and finding a comfortable, settled pattern that comes with fall. It’s about exploration and excitement. It’s about testing the waters. About pushing yourself and your boundaries. And I think Madison gives that to Sam with a nice dose of reality coming through the messages about what it means to be a person. Not just a man. Not just a woman. But a person who wants to establish meaningful relationships.

Review copy received from Lenore. September Girls is available now.