Tampa is the first novel by American author, Alissa Nutting. Celeste Price is a 26-year-old high-school teacher living in Tampa, Florida. Celeste is married to a cop and is a self-confessed soulless pervert. Her secret perversion is an obsession with fourteen-year-old boys. As an eighth grade English teacher, she has a large arena to choose from, and in her first class at Jefferson Junior High, she chooses Jack Patrick. She manages to juggle her job, her husband and her teenage lover until a complication arises: her lovers father is also attracted to her. Celeste proves to be stunningly selfish, a sexual predator who is all about self-preservation and whose actions will often leave the reader gasping. This is an interesting look at child sexual abuse from the point of view of the offender. Nutting is not afraid to throw herself into this taboo subject, and approaches it with humour, panache and insight. It is perhaps a little slow to get moving, but the pace certainly picks up and manages to hold the readers interest where the Fifty Shades trilogy just dragged. Some editions of this erotic offering have a delightfully suggestive pink buttonhole cover. While the subject matter and the hot sex scenes may classify this as erotica, readers will find this a novel with a decent plot and some excellent imagery: She gave the long grunt of a walrus bearing a load of breech pups.. and The charcoal frizz of her perm hovered above her scalp like a rising cloud of smog and deciding between the two of them was like being asked to pick a dance partner and given the option of a trained choreographer or an epileptic with a wooden leg are but a few examples of this. Can a novel be both hilarious AND thought-provoking? As long as the reader is prepared for the scorching sexual content, this one is blackly funny but also sharply prescient!

This is not the kind of book I usually read but I'm glad I did. Even now a day after I finished reading my mind is still reeling through the events, themes & ideas laid out in the book. It's certainly not boring & it's not for the faint hearted, with it's overtly sexual language that doesn't beat around the bush. It's not a comfortable read... with such graphic descriptions of happenings that cause your mind to scream out "this is so wrong!" but I implore you to persevere as it's not until you finish the book that you'll be able to take in the full meaning that Alissa Nutting is imparting. There has been controversy & some bookshops have taken the so called moral high-ground & refused to sell the book. These bookshops are stupid, they promote ignorance & deserve to go out of business for inhibiting the open expression & discussion of important issues in society. This book is not glorifying deviant behaviour, it's quite the opposite I feel, or least that's what I took away from the book. I highly recommend this to anyone, especially if you have kids.

Even though I read the blurb for Tampa, I really didnt know what to expect once I started getting into it. I knew it was going to be controversial, and I can say this: this is definitely not going to be everyones cup of tea, nor is it for the faint of heart. I almost couldnt finish this book because of its content, but being the person that I am, I have to finish a book.



It was interesting to read from Celeste Prices point of view, to try and grasp the reasons as to why she does what she does. But at no point during the book was she able to convince me; I felt no empathy towards her, not just because of what she is. The book is written in a way that makes you in no way feel emphatic towards her, maybe because it would be disturbing to have a pedophile as your protagonist that is likeable. A strong point of this book, despite the fact that it is dealing with a pedophile, is the imagery Alissa Nutting is able to conjure up through her writing. Although explicit, it is strong and helps the narration move along. However, a point of this novel that I find to be weak and slightly confusing is that, even though Celestes husband is a cop, he in no way suspects her of anything, not even when she begins to become distant towards him, and which gradually gets worse as the novel progresses. He never once suspects her until she finally gets caught out. The book is merciless, never once sugar-coating what is going on between Celeste and Jack Patrick, the boy that becomes her next victim. The book itself moves at a very good pace, and it leaves little time for the reader to stop and put the book down to catch a breather. It grasps you from the beginning, and doesnt let go until the very end.



Why the book was written, I dont really know. The topic is one people will talk about it, but was it because the topic is controversial, or is it to possibly raise awareness of this issue? Thats something I kept thinking about when reading the book, but then again, maybe it was something that Alissa Nutting thought she had to write about. But either way, I think she tackled the topic well (even though the explicit sex scenes were a bit of a put off) and I think of it as one of those books that will leave an impression on you, regardless of whether you enjoyed it or not.