Book Review: "The Knockout Queen" by Rufi Thorpe
“The Knockout Queen” by Rufi Thorpe
Synopsis:
Bunny Lampert is the princess of North Shore—beautiful, tall, blond, with a rich real-estate-developer father and a swimming pool in her backyard. Michael—with a ponytail down his back and a septum piercing—lives with his aunt in the cramped stucco cottage next door. When Bunny catches Michael smoking in her yard, he discovers that her life is not as perfect as it seems. At six foot three, Bunny towers over their classmates. Even as she dreams of standing out and competing in the Olympics, she is desperate to fit in, to seem normal, and to get a boyfriend, all while hiding her father’s escalating alcoholism. Michael has secrets of his own. At home and at school Michael pretends to be straight, but at night he tries to understand himself by meeting men online for anonymous encounters that both thrill and scare him. When Michael falls in love for the first time, a vicious strain of gossip circulates and a terrible, brutal act becomes the defining feature of both his and Bunny’s futures—and of their friendship. With storytelling as intoxicating as it is intelligent, Rufi Thorpe has created a tragic and unflinching portrait of identity, a fascinating examination of our struggles to exist in our bodies, and an excruciatingly beautiful story of two humans aching for connection.—Penguin RandomHouse
Rating (out of 5): 4.25
Trigger Warnings: domestic violence, drugs, homophobia (including physical violence), alcoholism
Review: I hated nearly every second of high school. This hardly makes me unique, but so many books that write about this time in our lives don’t at all resonate with my experience of being a teenager. “The Knockout Queen,” which paints a different view of high school, manages to be both dark and warm, hopeful and bleak.
Michael lives with his aunt and cousin, due to his mother’s stint in prison after having stabbed his father in self defense. He lives a secret double life, meeting older men from Craigslist at night. A chance encounter with his neighbor, Bunny, brings him both the friendship he has been missing, and involves him in a tragic trajectory that will color the rest of his life.
Bunny’s father, a widower descending into deeper and deeper alcoholism, runs a construction business propped up by some highly shady financial activity. Bunny is a beautiful but gargantuan teenager, a volleyball star baffled by her size and power. She and Michael make an unlikely but inseparable pair.
The later action of the book contains a great deal of spoilers so I have to tread carefully, but Bunny engages in a violent act meant to protect Michael that leaves both their lives in disarray. This act changes the both of their lives permanently.
The most incredible part of the book to me was the epilogue, revisiting Bunny and Michael in their mid-twenties. The paths they both take manage to be both shocking and unsurprising. It packs a serious gut punch that will stay with you for a while.
TL;DR: Not your typical high school narrative, a novel about misfits, power, violence, and the people who shape our lives.
If you liked this, try:
“Trust Exercise” by Susan Choi (my review here)
“Marilou is Everywhere” by Sarah Elaine Smith (my review here)
“Dare Me” by Megan Abbott
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