"Pretty Little Liars: Summer School": Teen Sex Galore! But Why?

Pretty Little Liars: Summer School Girls

The Pretty Little Liars novels, the original television series that was based on the novels, and Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin, the first season of the reboot of the series, all had age-gap relationships. For example, in the original series, Alison and Aria, two Pretty Little Liars, had an affair with Mr. Ezra Fitz - the high school’s English teacher. 

Pretty Little Liars | Alison & Ezra

And, interestingly, in Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin, fans of the original series learned that Mr. Fitz and Aria were married. Consequently, Imogen, a 16-year-old Pretty Little Liar, allowed Mr. Fitz and Aria to adopt her baby!

However, Pretty Little Liars: Summer School, which is the second season of the reboot, didn’t have any age-gap relationships; but, curiously, Pretty Little Liars: Summer School had a shocking number of teen sex and makeout scenes - including teen girl-on-girl scenes. For example, the first episode alone had 3.5 teen sex scenes! (One scene was off-camera and another scene stopped just prior to teen oral sex.) However, one wouldn't know about the prolific teen sex scenes from Max's synopsis:

In Season 2, our PLLs face down summer school and a new villain — who may or may not have a connection to "A" — ready to put them all to the test.

But the picture of the co-stars, who are playing high school coeds during the summer after their junior year, inexplicably posing in bikini tops that’s posted on Max’s website is a peek at the raunchy content in the series.

Pretty Little Liars: Summer School | Noa and Shawn

For example, in episode 01, while Noa and Shawn were dating, Noa experienced a family issue. Despite having four close female friends, Noa was allowed to stay at Shawn’s house while her family issue was being resolved. Consequently, naughty Noa crept into her boyfriend’s bed for (teen) sex.

Pretty Little Liars: Summer School | Mrs. Noble and Noa

Interestingly, Shawn’s mother knew the teens were having late-night sex, but she didn’t stop them. However, she waited until the morning to confront Noa whom the director slash wardrobe department decided to display in a pair of short running shorts seductively sitting in a living room chair.

16-Year-Old Britney Spears (Rolling Stone)

This may be shocking to (ultra) [orthodox] Jews and Muslims, but apparently, teens having sex in their bedrooms is not uncommon. For example, Lynne Spears shared in her memoir, Through The Storm: A Real Tale Of Fame And Family In A Tabloid World, that Britney Spears was drinking at 13 and that Britney lost her virginity the following year to an 18-year-old football player. Lynne encouraged her teen daughter to have sex, because Lynne surmised that it would make Britney more popular. So much so that Lynne allowed then-15-year-old Britney to have sex in her bedroom with her new boyfriend - Justin Timberlake.

And from the New York Times Bestseller, Restless Virgins: Love, Sex, and Survival in Prep School, we learned that Whitney had her first orgasm while attending the tony Milton Academy. Interestingly, the co-authors described Whitney’s teen orgasm as “delicious”, which took place “at some odd hour of the night” in Nick’s bedroom whom was conveniently living off-campus.

Pretty Little Liars: Summer School | Shawn, Noa and Minnie

As for Pretty Little Liars: Summer School, after being confronted by Noa’s mother, Noa decided to go home. And since Noa’s mother was conveniently away, Noa and Shawn moved their teen sex to Noa’s bed, but one night after sex with Shawn, Noa couldn’t prevent herself from thinking about her teen girl-on-girl affair with Minnie.

Unsurprisingly, most critics loved Pretty Little Liars: Summer School. For example, the show received a 90% average Tomatometer. Maybe that's why there was so much teen sex. #teensexsales

Caroline O’Donoghue's "The Rachel Incident: A Novel": An Irish Student Desires to Seduce Her Professor

 

Here's Amazon’s Synopsis for Caroline O’Donoghue's The Rachel Incident (Alfred A. Knopf, 2023): 

Rachel is a student working at a bookstore when she meets James, and it’s love at first sight. Effervescent and insistently heterosexual, James soon invites Rachel to be his roommate and the two begin a friendship that changes the course of both their lives forever [...]

When Rachel falls in love with her married professor, Dr. Fred Byrne, James helps her devise a reading at their local bookstore, with the goal that she might seduce him afterwards. But Fred has other desires. So begins a series of secrets and compromises that intertwine the fates of James, Rachel, Fred, and Fred’s glamorous, well-connected, bourgeois wife. Aching with unrequited love, shot through with delicious, sparkling humor, The Rachel Incident is a triumph.

Before discussing her attraction to Dr. Frederick Byrne, Rachel shared some of her sexual history, by relating that when she was 17, she used her birthday money to “procure the morning-after pill”. Rachel lived at home during college, but to facilitate having sex, which she was “obsessed with having”, she moved out, because she was exhausted with having to sex at house parties, in parked cars, and in campus bathrooms. 

Rachel: “[...] there’s something depressing about asking your boyfriend to meet you at “our bathroom.” 

Interestingly, Rachel stated that having sex: “[....] as a teenager was more mature than anything between the ages of eighteen and twenty [...]” 

18-year-old Rachel had taken Dr. Byrne’s first-year Victorian Literature seminar group at University College Cork, and she was thought to be “one of his favorites”. Rachel narrated that Dr. Byrne was “a very big person, 6’5” and extremely wide, [with] a farmer’s build”. And with a “broad brow, wide nose, heavy-lidded eyes [that] all came together”

Other than her boyfriend’s views, Rachel stated that: “Dr. Byrne was the only other man in my life whose opinions I cared about.”

Rachel reminisced that Dr. Byrne was a lover of “fancy little cakes” like Portuguese tarts, which he would bring to class “still warm from the English Market.”

Dr. Byrne was “everyone’s favorite lecturer”. Why? Mostly because: “[...] the English faculty was mostly women.” Plus, per Rachel: “Having a large man teach you about a book felt exciting, like Dead Poets Society.”

When Rachel visited Dr. Byrne’s office, she thought, “Are we gonna fuck?” And that wasn’t particular to Dr. Byrne, because she had that erotic thought anytime she was in a small room with a man - whom she wasn’t related to. For example, she related:

I could be standing next to a seventy-year-old man in a lift and think: I hope he doesn’t want to have sex; I’m still on my period.

However, Rachel really did want to have sex with her professor, whom she had a quiet, but obvious, crush on since she was 18. And she was “pretty sure” that all the other first-year school girls “[...] were all hoping to fuck Dr. Byrne.”

Dr. Byrne was obviously different: I really did want to have sex with him. It wasn’t just that he was a random man in a small room. I had been nursing a quiet crush on him since my first year, a crush I only kept private because of how annoyingly obvious it seemed. I didn’t really talk to the girls in my year but I was pretty sure we were all hoping to fuck Dr. Byrne. He was huge, and passionate, and he was the only man under fifty in the English department.

Dr. Byrne was married, which, interestingly, Rachel found “most tantalizingly” attractive, but Rachel’s attraction to her married professor should not be surprising, because as R. Don Steele related in Date Young Women For Men Over 35, being married makes attractive (older) men more attractive to (younger) women. And not only was Dr. Byrne married, but he was married to his former (grad) student.

Before Rachel left her professor’s office, she: “[...] turned around to see another girl waiting to discuss her essay and potentially to be fucked by Dr. Byrne.”

During her senior year, Rachel worked at O’Conner Books and, by that time, she had taken several of Dr. Byrne’s classes. One day, Dr. Byrne entered O’Conner Books.

“Rachel,” Dr. Byrne said. “I didn’t know you worked here.”

“Hello!” I said brightly, stumbling into that young person’s problem of never knowing how to address your professors [...] “Yes!”

“Any recommendations?” he asked politely [...]

After they had a laugh over Rachel’s recommendation, Dr. Byrne “caught” her eye, and she thought: Fuck me and I’ll say more things! 

Dr. Byrne’s visit to O’Conner Books caused Rachel to have “perfect conviction” that she was going to “rebound” from her ex-boyfriend - with her college professor. “How chic!”

Dr. Byrne appeared to be “perplexed” by Rachel’s “half-flirting”, but he was not “altogether uninterested.”

Dr. Byrne wrote The Kensington Diet, a book on “Victorian Ireland during the famine”, and after he inquired about how many of his books had been pre-ordered by O’Conner Books, Rachel lied.

I saw that the order selection was zero.

“Fifteen,” I said. “Fifteen copies.”

“Oh,” he said, surprised. “Quite a lot, then.”

Rachel lied, because she wanted to protect Dr. Byrne “against the world’s many disappointments.” She wanted to “guard him” with her body the way she would a “baby or small dog.” In addition, due to the fact that he towered over her, he made her feel “petite”. Per Rachel: “[...] to feel protective over someone who physically towers over you is a hell of a drug.”

Subsequently, Rachel introduced James, her co-worker and roommate, to Dr. Byrne, which caused Dr. Byrne to: “[...] move quickly, as if realizing that he had been lingering too long.” Consequently, Rachel wanted to “drive across the counter and keep him from escaping” from their “private world filled with little poses and sexy jokes about literature.”

To cover her tracks about lying about the pre-ordered copies of Dr. Byrne’s book, Rachel entered fake pre-orders. For instance, she entered a pre-order for Moira Finchley, whom had died two years prior. Consequently, James surmised that Rachel was attracted to her professor. 

James practically leapt into the air.

“You dirty bitch!”

A week later, after Rachel and James entered the remaining fake (back-dated) preorders, Ben, the bookstore’s manager, inquired, “What the fuck is the The Kensington Diet? Is that like the Atkins?” James replied by lying that The Kensington Diet had been written by Dr. Byrne, a “brilliant doctor”, whom had been profiled on Fergal O’Riordan’s show and that there had been “a lot of buzz” around the professor; thus, O’Conner Books should ask him to do a signing or book launch at the bookstore. The scheme was hatched over the idea that to get over her ex, James wanted Rachel to have a “glamorous, [and] exciting rebound” with her professor. And James was “keen for drama” too.

Consequently, after class, Rachel told Dr. Byrne that the bookstore’s manager wanted to know if the professor wanted to “launch his book at O’Conner Books.” Perplexed, Dr. Byrne agreed to the book signing. And to receive details about the event, he gave Rachel his wife slash publisher’s email address, which caused Rachel’s face to turn jelous red. 

While “under two duvets eating chow mein”, Rachel and James devised a plan to get Dr. Byrne to stay at the bookstore after everyone left. James’ plan was to make Dr. Byrne: “[...] sign all the copies of his book. Stick him in the stockroom. Then [...] seduce him.”

Rachel, “In the stockroom?”

James, “You’ve never fantasized about fucking someone in the stockroom?”

Rachel: “Of course I had.”

On the day of the book launch, Deenie Harrington, Dr. Byrne’s wife, “scanned her eggy eyes over” Rachel. Deenie was trying to “puzzle out” Rachel’s interest in Dr. Byrne. Why?

There were too many cliches about male English professors and their adoring young students for her not to have been on the alert. She had been in his class herself, albeit as an MA student.

Deenie wanted to figure out whether I was the kind of girl who has ill-advised but unrequited crushes on her professors, or the kind of girl who orchestrated bookshop launches in order to seduce them. I don’t think she found an answer. 

Dr. Byrne, looking “handsome and wilted”, arrived at O’Conner Books “just after six”. Consequently, Rachel narrated: “I realized then how much my crush had developed [...]” James was impressed too.

“Oh my God,” James said [to Rachel], when he saw him across the shop. “I bet he’s hung like a chandelier”

“Shut up.”

“Do you have clean kickers on? He prodded.

“I’m not discussing this here.”

“But all the same, I was wearing nice knickers.”

About thirty people came to Dr. Byrne’s book launch. “Twenty-two of them were friends, family or work colleagues [...]” Rachel “delivered a short, burbling introduction [...] Afterwards Dr. Byrne read the introduction from his book [...]” 

After the reading, Dr. Byrne was set up at a table that we usually used to stack the toilet books on. His friends and colleagues queued up to speak to him. A photographer from the Evening Echo was there to take pictures for the social diary.

“It was all over by nine o’clock.” Dr. Byrne’s “friends decamped to a pub”, but Dr. Byrne, without being prompted by Rachel or James, decided to “stick around the bookshop to sign the excess copies”. Dr. Byrne’ wife, “kissed him, getting up on her tiptoes to do it, and said she’d see him at the pub.” But that only annoyed Rachel and made her covetous and vindictive. “Fuck you,” She thought. “I’m going to shag your husband just for that.”

My analysis of The Rachel Incident will abruptly stop here, because the shocking plot twist that occurred five paragraphs later does not fit with the theme or any motifs of this blog. But I'll end by sharing that Hamilton Cain related in a review for the New York Times that: "All the incidents in “The Rachel Incident” add up to a gratifying, accomplished novel."

Netflix's & Holly Jackson’s A GOOD GIRL'S GUIDE TO MURDER: Teen Andie Has Sex with Janitor and Teacher!

IMDb’s Storyline:

Pretty and popular high school senior Andie Bell was murdered by her boyfriend, Sal Singh, who then killed himself. It was all anyone could talk about. And five years later, Pip sees how the tragedy still haunts her town. But she can't shake the feeling that there was more to what happened that day.

In Netflix’s A Good Girl's Guide to Murder (2024), Andie was involved in two age-gap relationships -  with Dan Da Silva, a “handsome” police officer, and with The Secret Older Guy, Mr. Elliot Ward, the Head of English at Fairview High. (Note that Pip, a teen investigating Andie’s murder for a school project, referred to Officer Da Silva as “handsome” in s01e01.)

Pip Discovers that Mr. Ward is Andie's Secret Older Guy

In s01e05, Officer Da Silva informed Pip that he and Andie “had a thing”. Pip was able to deduce that the thing between Officer Da Silva and Andie occurred when Andie was illegally 15. However, Officer Da Silva implied that Andie claimed that she was 16 when they had sex. (Note that 16 is the age-of-consent in the United Kingdom where the Netflix series was set.)

Officer Da Silva, “Andie and I had a thing, but it was two years before she went missing.” 

Pip, “How old was she? That’s statutory rape. She was 15!”

Officer Da Silva, “Yeah. Not a good look if you want to become a police officer. I could tell you she lied about her age, said she was 16, but I’m not sure you’d believe me, would you? 

Later in the same episode, Mr. Ward shared with Pip that when Andie was 17, he and Andie “grew close and started a relationship”, but they only had age-gap sex three times before Andie started dating Sal - her teen boyfriend with whom she did not have sex. 

Mr. Ward, “[...] her grades had started slipping. She came to me for help - just tutoring. This was not long after [my wife] Isabel had died and I was in a dark place. Andie and I grew close and started a relationship.”

Andie's Ivy House Hotel Selfie

Unsurprisingly, it was Andie’s idea to have Mr. Ward take her to the “posh’ Ivy House Hotel where they checked into the hotel under Daisy Buchanan and Jay Gatsby. To commemorate the occasion, before sex with her teacher for the first time, Andie took a selfie in a pink lingerie set in the hotel’s bathroom. 

They went to the Ivy House three times before Andie ended the age-gap relationship and started dating Sal  - a teen classmate. 

Mr. Ward, “It only happened a few times, and then she started seeing Sal. We limped on for a bit, but then she called it off. She said she was in love with him.”

However, after Andie started dating Sal, she asked Mr. Ward to see her again at the Ivy House, but that time it wasn’t for sex. It was for money.

Pip, “You were at the Ivy House Hotel with her just days before she went missing.”

Mr. Ward, “You’re right, I was. She said she wanted to see me. At first, I thought she’d had a change of heart, but she wanted money.”

Pip, “Why?”

Mr. Ward didn’t know why Andie needed the money, and he didn’t give her the £5,000 that she requested. Consequently, a few days later at Mr. Ward’s house, Andie threatened to (falsely) accuse Mr. Ward of having a non-consual age-gap relationship with her, but Mr. Ward refused to be blackmailed. 

Mr. Ward, “I don’t know, but I said, ‘No.’ Then she left, but a few days later, she came to my house. She told me if I didn’t give her £5,000, she would tell the world that I’d taken advantage of her. Again, I said, ’No, I wouldn’t be blackmailed.’ 

Consequently, Andie, “[...] went wild, screaming and slapping [Mr. Ward]”. In an effort to defend himself, he pushed Andie who, “Hit her head on the countertop. It was bad. There was blood everywhere.” But after Mr. Ward went to get his phone to call an ambulance, Andie was gone - never to be seen by him again. 

Naturally, Holly Jackson’s A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder novel, a #1 New York Times Bestseller, provided more details about Andie. For example, we learned from the novel that 17-year-old Andrea “Andie” Bell was described as “[...] white, five feet six inches tall, with long blond hair and [“sparking pale”] blue eyes” and “plump pale lips” - the  “[...] prettiest, most popular girl in the grade”.

Mr. Elliot Ward was described as the Fairview High history teacher and former Yale professor with “wisps of gray hair in his brown hair and [...] thick-rimmed glasses.” Mr. Ward taught Andie AP US History during her sophomore year, but per Mr. Ward, Andie initiated their student-teacher affair when she started “paying attention” to him at school during her senior year. For example, Andie followed Mr. Ward in the halls where she asked about his day, and she even asked for his phone number.

“It was late February. Andie started . . . paying attention to me at school. I wasn’t teaching her; she didn’t take his history. But she’d follow me in the halls and ask me about my day. And, I don’t know, I guess the attention felt . . . nice. [...] And then Andie starts asking to have my phone number. Nothing had happened at this point, we hadn’t kissed or anything, but she kept asking.”

Not being able to resist the allure of a nymphet, Mr. Ward (somewhat) reluctantly gave Andie his phone number. Subsequently, Andie suggested that they, “[...] meet somewhere outside of school. Like a hotel” where they had sex for the first time. 

“I told her absolutely not. But in a moment of madness, a moment of weakness, I found myself booking one. She could be very persuasive. [...] And I booked the [The Ivy House] hotel for the next week [...] That’s when it happened the first time.’ His voice was quiet with shame. ‘We didn’t stay the night; [...] We stayed just a couple of hours.”

Mr. Ward tried to end the age-gap affair, but Andie blackmailed him into returning to The Ivy House for sex by planting her nude selfie in his classroom, which Max, to his delight, discovered in the back of the classroom.

“I said it couldn’t happen again and tried to call it off. Andie wouldn’t let me. She started threatening to turn me in. She interrupted one of my lessons, came over and whispered to me that she’d left a naked picture of herself hidden in the classroom somewhere and that I should find it before someone else did. Trying to scare me. So, I went back to the Ivy House the next week, because I didn’t know what she’d do if I didn’t. I thought she would tire of whatever this was soon enough.”

Subsequently, Mr. Ward tried to end the affair again, but that only caused an “irate” Andie to go to Mr. Ward’s home where she screamed, she said that she “only touched” him because she wanted him to help her get into Yale, and she destroyed his deceased wife’s paintings. 

There are some notable differences between the Netflix series and the novel:

Andie’s selfie that Pip found in Max’s bedroom and that Max found in Mr. Ward’s classroom was different in the book than in the series. In the series' selfie, Andie was wearing a pink bra and pantie set, but in the book, the schoolgirl was nude except for a pair of black underwear. Jackson wrote:

A photo she’d taken of herself in a mirror. Standing on a red and white tiled floor, her right hand raised and clutched round the phone. Her mouth was pushed out in a pout and her eyes looked straight out of the page; she was wearing nothing but a pair of black underwear.

(Note: In the ebook that I referenced, which was published by Electric Monkey - an imprint of Egmont UK (2019), instead of black underwear, topless teen Andie wore black pants.)

In the series and the novel, 15-year-old Andie had sex with Daniel “Dan” Da Silva. In the series, Daniel implied that Andie lied about her age. In the novel, it was clarified that they had sex while Dan was Fairview High’s janitor. 

In the series, Nat Da Silva’s nudes were leaked “all over the school”. Consequently, Nat was nicknamed “‘Nude-gate’ Nat.” In the novel, we learned that Nat was a freshman at the time (i.e., ≈14-years-old) and that Andie was the leaker`of Nat’s topless video. 

In the series, after Mr. Ward and Andie ended their student-teacher affair, Andie attempted to blackmail Mr. Ward by demanding £5,000 or she would “tell the world” that he took advantage of her, but after Mr. Ward refused, Andie “[...] went wild, screaming and slapping [Mr. Ward]”. In the novel, Andie blackmailed Mr. Ward into returning to The Ivy House for sex by planting a nude selfie in his classroom. But after Mr. Ward tried to end the age-gap affair again, Andie became “irate” and went to Mr. Ward’s home where she screamed, she said that she “only touched” him because she wanted him to help her get into Yale, and she destroyed his deceased wife’s paintings. 

Alan Sepinwall opined in his review of the series for Rolling Stone (August 1, 2024): 

Once again, the idea is to contrast the seemingly sweet, wide-eyed, innocent exterior of these girls with the dark secrets they’re trying to uncover... "Good Girl’s Guide" is a reasonably well made version of that [...]

481-Year Age-Gap Romance with Teen: That's Hot?

Kaitlin Brito

Valeriya Safronova posted in the New York Times Style section: “A 481-Year Age Difference? For Some Readers, That’s Hot.” (Aug. 13, 2024) In the piece, Safronova wrote that for “fans of romantasy novels: “[...] an age gap [romance] of hundreds of years between a main character and a love interest is the norm.”

Girl meets boy, girl falls in love, girl finds out boy is 500 years old.

Sound inappropriate? Icky? Creepy? Weird? Not for fans of romantasy novels, a subgenre that combines fantasy and romance, for whom an age gap of hundreds of years between a main character and a love interest is the norm.

Safronova referenced Sarah J. Maas’ A Court of Thorns and Roses, a “megahit” series where Feyre Archeron, whom is “about 19”, has a “500-year-old “mate,” a mysterious faerie”. Safronova wrote that “many readers” rate sex scenes between Feyre and her Shadow Daddy on a “spiciness” scale.

With the arrival of megahits like “A Court of Thorns and Roses,” a series by Sarah J. Maas, romantasy has garnered a huge fan base. Many readers dissect characters like Feyre Archeron, the protagonist in “A Court of Thorns and Roses,” who is about 19 when she meets her 500-year-old “mate,” a mysterious faerie; they swap theories; and they rate sex scenes on a “spiciness” scale. 

Fans of the genre refer to such ancient love interests as “shadow daddies.”

Safronova related that Maas is: “[...] the current rock star of the genre with more than 38 million copies of her books sold, makes liberal use of the shadow daddy trope.”

(Note: The faeries don’t look 500-years-old, but: “[...] they’re always young-presenting and, well, hot.”)

Typically, the male creatures — vampires, faeries, gods, angels — possess dark and mysterious powers. They can be centuries old internally, but externally, they’re always young-presenting and, well, hot.

And these shadow daddies are desperate to be saved from their tortured pasts by the love of a  spunky and yes, younger, female main character.

Elisabeth Wheatley, 29, a romance author and romantasy fan, shared with Safronova that Shadow Daddies are attractive, because they’re: “[...] mature and experienced enough to share the mental load” with a (much) younger woman, and they “wouldn’t have to be taught how to apply for health insurance or fill out a car registration”.

Safronova referenced several series’ that contained “enormous age gaps between younger women and older men”:

From Blood and Ash series by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Lightlark series by Alex Aster,  

Hush, Hush series by Becca Fitzpatrick 

The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo.

Lastly, Safronova wrote: “For many readers the acceptability of an age gap [romance] hinges on how deftly the author handles the power imbalance between the young female main character and her ancient love interest.” 

For example, she wrote that some fans of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series have been “reassessing the ethics of those books and movies”. Why? It’s “partially” because Bella was a 17-year-old virgin while Edward Cullen was a 104-year-old telepathic vampire. Thereby, implying that if Bella were not a virgin, or even an MTV teen mom, their age-gap romance would have been (more) acceptable. 

(Note: Per Wikipedia: “As of November 2011, the [Twilight] series had sold over 120 million copies worldwide with translations into at least 38 different languages around the globe.” And The Twilight Saga, the films that were based on the Twilight series, grossed over $3.36 billion worldwide.)

GLAMOROUS DISASTERS: A Fifth Avenue Teen “Porno Druggie Queen”

Here’s part of Amazon’s synopsis for Eliot Schrefer’s Glamorous Disasters (Simon & Schuster, 2006)

Noah rose from humble beginnings and [...] got himself through Princeton. Now staggering under the weight of massive student loans and dazzled by life in the big city, Noah enters the rarefied field of SAT tutoring in Manhattan, working one-on-one with the spoiled, gorgeous children of the American aristocracy.

He takes on the considerable academic challenges that are Dylan Thayer [...] and his waifish sister, Tuscany. [...] Tuscany is avidly pursuing her own downfall via drugs and relationships with men more than twice her age. 

[...] Glamorous Disasters is an incisive portrayal of a small and privileged world, a cautionary tale written by a Harvard grad who was once an SAT tutor himself -- an outsider who became a magnificently observant insider.

That’s correct. Schrefer’s a New York City based 2001 Harvard alumnus and former SAT tutor. Autofiction?

In terms of Tuscany’s drug use, the reader learned from Dylan that Tuscany used to steal pills from their mother - Dr.  Susan Thayer, the pediatrician. Dylan, “I mean, Tuscany and me [sic] used to go into my mom’s office and her bedroom all the time and steal her shit.” 17-year-old Dylan smiles crookedly. “She has all this crazy shit.” 

However, Dylan did not say exactly when 15-year-old Tuscany started stealing her mother’s (prescription) drugs.

Tuscany, “a fifteen-year-old beauty”, was expelled from Moore-Pike Girls Academy, which some referred to as “Whore-Like Girls Academy”. Why was Tuscany expelled? She sexted her teen nudes, and she was found with a number of tabs of Xanax. Consequently, Noah and his  “Hamptons-tan” was hired to prepare Tuscany for the ISEE boarding school exam. 

For their first tutoring session, Tuscany wore “tiny purple pants'' that didn’t “[...] quite make it to the top of her exposed hipbones.” “The majority of her shirts sit on only one shoulder, and her pants all require thong underwear.”

Tuscany beckoned Noah into her bedroom while she played with a strand of her “white-blond” hair - twisting “it around an orange, fake-baked finger.” (i.e., an indicator of interest).

In a bit of age-gap relationship foreshadowing, Tuscany displayed a poster of Josh Hartnett. The actor was over her bedroom desk and encased in an “ornately gilt eighteenth century frame”. Before the tutoring began, Tuscany shared with 25-year-old Noah that her boyfriend was “so much older”: 

“My boyfriend is so much older than you.”

“My mom thinks I should hang out with guys my own age.”

“[...] But guys my age are so dumb.”

And before offering Noah one, Tuscany placed a cigarette between her lips, which her mother allowed, because, as Tuscany stated, “[...] She knows I’d be eating if I wasn't smoking.” Connectedly, a pillow placed in the center of Tuscany's bed read: “Boys Like Girls Who Look Neat - When in Doubt, Just Don’t Eat!”

On the way to the next tutoring session, Noah spied Tuscany on 86th street. Tuscany and Monica,  Tuscany’s “Really tall, really skinny” friend, were observing a Victoria’s Secret “pink teddy on a waxy pale mannequin”. It appeared to Noah that Tuscany was: “[...] recounting something that recently happened to her, probably involving a boy, or [more likely] a man.”

An hour later, Noah entered Tuscany’s cigarette smoke filled bedroom where “at the sight of her swaying hips”, Noah was “overtaken by a sudden burst of nerves.” And Tuscany shared with Noah, “I’m grounded again.” Why? “This man,” she replies. “My mom is crazy.” Thus, it appears that Tuscany was grounded for participating in some salacious activity with a man whom Tuscany described as, “[...] pretty nice. And loaded.” Unsurprisingly, Tuscany opined that her mother was “crazy” for disciplining her for having an age-gap affair. 

And where did 15-year-old Tuscany meet men? “At a bar, a club.” “Sometimes” the men would buy Tuscany drinks, but she preferred to keep her options open.

During a subsequent tutoring session, Tuscany wore: “[...] denim shorts that have been cut so high that the white cotton pockets hang to midthigh.” And a “tiny pink “Wild Girls” T-shirt”. Noah surmised that Tuscany was: “[...] probably planning her next date with an older man [...]”

Noah described Tuscany as a “hot girl in tiny shorts” ; thus, it was his “[...] job to look at her as little as possible.” But admittedly, it took “[...] resolve to keep his gaze averted.”

During the tutoring session, Noah asked Tuscany about It’s All You - Tuscany’s glossy teen fashion magazine. Here’s the headline on page 8 with Tuscany Thayer’s byline: “Hewitt Hos and Nightingale Nymphos: The Sluttiest Manhattan Schools Exposed”

And what did Roberto, Noah’s Albanian roommate, exclaim when he saw Tuscany on the cover of It’s All You? 

“Wow,” Roberto says libidinously

“This bitch is hot,” Roberto adds. “Seriously, Noah, you have to let me meet her.”

“No,” Noah says, his eyes flashing. “Absolutely not.”

“You’ve got to be shittin’ me. Why not [...]?”

“She’s a kid. Stop it.”

However, that night Noah was “alarmed by his [own] flicker of attraction” to Tuscany whom reminded Noah of his age-gap tutor-tutee attraction to Monroe. 

After Monroe he promised himself never to be drawn to another student. He stuffs It’s All About You under his mattress.

He thought he had banished Monroe from his mind, thought he had healed, but suddenly he feels the shame and guilt afresh. The depth of his feelings for her was inappropriate, he knows. His intense affection led him to consider doing things he should never have done, for which he can’t forgive himself. He distrusts his own feelings toward Tuscany, second-guesses himself: surely he isn’t repeating history, allowing attraction to distort his sense of duty?

Do you remember Monica, Tuscany’s “really tall, [and] really skinny” friend? Well, Cameron, another tutee, shared with Noah, “Well, they’re totally not friends anymore.” Why? Tuscany disappeared with Monica’s “totally hot doorman”.

“Monica has this totally hot doorman. Like, a little like Colin Farrel. And this one night Tuscany goes to Monica’s but, well, the doormen call up from the desk to say that she arrived, but she never makes it to Monica’s apartment”

“Whatever, I’m not going to say what I think, I’m sure she’s totally nice, but my friends say she’s a slut.”

Eventually, instead of going to boarding school, Tuscany: “[...] got into Choate, began the spring semester, and was removed from classes three days in [...]” Consequently, Noah was upgraded from tutor to teacher with teaching being done between Tuscany’s riding, ballet and piano lessons. 

After Noah became Tuscany’s teacher, Roberto suggested that Noah have a student-teacher sexual affair with Tuscany, whom Roberto referred to as “the bitch from the magazine”. But Noah replied, “She’s my student, Rob. And she’s fifteen. That’s not going to happen.”

However, Roberto persisted, “Just do things, don’t worry about what’s gonna happen, you know?” And Roberto suggested that Noah stick his hands in Tuscany’s pants or as a last resort, Roberto suggested that Noah kiss his student. 

On the first (home) school day, Noah: “[...] was nervous about entering the bedroom of a sleeping hot fifteen-year-old.” However, Dr. Thayer had Agnès, Tuscany’s assistant, prepare the dining table as Dr. Thayer deemed that it was “improper” for Noah to spend all his time in Tuscany’s bedroom.

Tuscany attended their first class: “[...] wearing a clubbing shirt emblazoned with a sequined martini glass, the neckline dipping to the tops of her breasts.” And “skin-tight denim”. Why? Per the narrator, Tuscany “[...] draws focus to herself whenever she can.” Consequently, Noah reprimanded himself: “[...] stop looking at the slender fingers playing with her bra strap, the butterfly wings of her breastbone.”

Later, Noah learned from Dr. Thayer that Tuscany had dated “forty-year-olds”, but Dr. Thayer didn’t “think” that Tuscany was still dating older men; however, Dylan referred to his sister as the “porno druggie queen”.

At Pangaea’s, a Manhattan night club, while Noah was at the bar, Dylan entered with an entourage:

Two are long-haired and handsome [...] Upper East Side twentysomething aristocracy; the other is an eyebrow-pierced Asian kid about Dylan’s age.

Noah learned from an aristocrat that Tuscany patronized Pangaea “all the time” - with the aristocrat. And, to Dylan’s dismay, Noah learned that Tuscany was the aggressor in the age-gap affair with aristocracy. 

“Hey, Dylan,” Roberto asks, “where’s your sister tonight?”

“My sister? She’s like fifteen. She’s at home.”

“Come on, Dylan,” an aristocrat says. “You know she’s here all the time.”

“Yeah,” says the other aristocrat to the first. “Here with you!”

“That had better not happen ever again, asshole.” Dylan says darkly. “Don’t ever let me hear about you touching her.”

“Dylan, Dylan.” The aristocrat over enunciates, bathing the group in beer vapor. “Don’t you remember? Maybe you were too coked up. She was touching me.”

The Asian kid shared some more details about Tuscany, Pangaea and men. The Asian kid pointed out a man “thirty-five, one hand against his belly and the other holding an unlit cigar” whom Tuscany had been “with for a while”. 

Interestingly, the Asian kid opined that Tuscany was too hot, and he related that Tuscany knew that there was a positive correlation between being skinny, being hot and being the center of attention at Pangaea. Consequently, she got “eaten alive” before turning eighteen due to men offering her drinks and drugs in exchange for teen sex. 

And it was the Asian kid who revealed to Noah why Tuscany was expelled from prep school. 

Asian kid: “What were you tutoring her for, the SAT already?”

Noah: No, no, the ISEE. She wanted to go to boarding school.”

Asian kid: “Oh right. I forgot, she got busted for sending naked pictures to some guy and having like forty bajillion tabs of Xanax.”

Later in the novel, Noah chaperoned Tuscany and Octavia, Tuscany’s teen friend, on a field trip to France. Octavia carried herself with a “voluptuous sense of sexual possibility”. On the Air France flight, 15-year-old Tuscany imbibed a miniature bottle of wine. And after landing, Tuscany and Octavia “developed an instant crush on Benoît” - the French tour guide and father of two. 

After returning to Tuscany’s Fifth Avenue bedroom, for being such a credible chaperone, Tuscany gifted her teacher:

A pink oxford. The fabric is sail-thick, as if made from the very stuff of yachts. The sleeves can be rolled up when watching a regatta or worn down for cocktails on the lawn.

While changing into the pink oxford in Tuscany’s bathroom, Noah’s “thoughts leap to horrible places” like the “bliss he would feel should he have ducked into the bathroom after having slept with Tuscany.”

After emerging from the bathroom, Tuscany, braless and with her lips inches away from her teacher’s, seductively adjusted the pink oxford. Tuscany’s young fingers skated across her teacher’s pectorals and lingered on his chest. Ergo, Noah was tempted to embrace his student, but he opined that Tuscany did not need another man “holding her”. And Noah was not like Roberto whom did not fear the potential consequences of having an age-gap affair with a 15-year-old.  

Later, at a dinner party for Mr. Thayer, Tuscany was dressed “like a fairy-tale princess” in a “red silken dress, ribbed in a darker red” - crisscrossed in the front and tied low in the back. Consequently, a group of men in business suits with names like “Solomon X, X Lidden III, Powel X, Peter X Stockton, and a half dozen Andrews” formed an “admiring circle” around the nymphet where Tuscany received “admiring glances”. 

After Octavia arrived “wearing a very short dress” “with lips glossed and erotically parted”, the two nymphets faced “down unsuspecting thirty-year-old bachelors are in arm, giggling and laying their hands on the unwary men.”

In the end, Olena, Noah’s Albanian immigrant tutee, fittingly said, “Perhaps we have fallen into a type. Student and teacher fall in love. It happens all the time, no?”