“Can I Stray” by Jenna Adams
It's been a long time since I picked up a book that hit me so hard as this one. It took me a while to really get hooked, but by the end I literally could not put it down.
Fourteen-year-old Brooke Tyler has spent her whole life waiting for a boy to choose her. Matt is about to go to university, scared to leave behind everything he knows. When both are cast as romantic leads in Romeo and Juliet, they fulfil the roles of forbidden lovers both on and off the stage. Brooke is sure that her fairy tale is coming true – and best of all, Matt is older.
Brooke considers secrets and lies a small price to pay for her first boyfriend, but the relationship is set to cost her after one night alone in an empty auditorium. When Brooke learns that Matt’s actions that night were illegal, her world shatters.
Years later, Brooke and Matt reunite as adults. Matt wants to undo all the damage he caused, but Brooke makes a choice which forces them both to question their relationship.
Full disclosure, I know Jenna Adams and consider them a friend.
I don’t know what it is, but I’m reading a lot of coming-of-age stories at the moment. I couldn’t say precisely what it is that’s drawing me to them. But if this trend brings me more books like Jenna Adams’ Can I Stray, you’re definitely not going to hear me complaining.
Can I Stray tells the story of Brooke and Matt, two teenagers cast as Romeo and Juliet in their local theatre group. Brooke is fourteen and has self-esteem and codependency issues, born from her father abandoning her. Matt is seventeen and terrified of the expectations around being an adult, leaving school, and starting university.
When the play begins to seep into reality, and Brooke and Matt start to grow close, they are only too aware of the age difference. But when Matt turns eighteen, suddenly, everything becomes far more complicated.
So far, so standard YA love story. What Adams does that elevates Can I Stray above this is to remove the toxic romanticism from it. This isn't a story of young love. It's a story of an inappropriate relationship. This isn't two young people experiencing love for the first time and learning that first love never lasts. It's a story of a new adult and an underage girl who are both too unprepared and uneducated to prevent themselves from making a terrible mistake that will haunt them for the rest of their lives.
What really makes Adams' story work are the two main characters. Brooke and Matt both feel universal while remaining specific. I was not like either of them when I was their ages, but I saw myself in both of them. I can remember what it felt like to be prepared to accept anything if it meant I had a girlfriend. I can remember the fear of worrying everyone else knew how to be an adult better than me and that I was being left behind. And I can remember what it was like being caught in the throws of adolescent hormones and the first pangs of love.
The best thing about the characters is that neither is black and white. The main thrust of the story is the inappropriate age gap. But while there is never any doubt that, as the legal adult, all the responsibility lies on Matt's shoulders, Adams never makes him the monster or Brooke the pure and innocent victim. Both of them want what happens. Both of them consent - at least technically - to what they do together. Both of them are impacted by the fallout, if just in different ways.
But - and this is what makes Can I Stray work so well - Adams never lets either character off the hook. Matt's actions were wrong, as he had all the power in the relationship. He was the adult in the situation, if only legally. And while Brooke is the one who truly suffers, Adams shows us that Matt's mistakes also impact his life. Brooke is unmistakably the victim, but that doesn't erase Matt's own suffering. But, most important of all, Matt's pain never lets him off the hook for what he did.
For such a great novel, it feels almost churlish to pick at tiny issues. But there is one. Without wanting to go into spoilers, the second half of Brooke's arc leans a little too heavily on the influence of the men in her life rather than her own agency. I would have liked it if Brooke had fought for the space to fix herself rather than it coming only when a man provided it for her.
But then, I suppose that's the point. We live in a world where girls and women all too often only have their own space when the men in their lives allow it. But if this was an intentional point, it's the one thing I would have liked Adams to lean harder into.
Can I Stray is an incredibly powerful debut novel. The plot is well crafted, but it's the characters that really make it stand out. There wasn't a moment where the story slowed. With every step, I wanted to keep following these characters and what they were going through. I can't recommend it enough, especially if you're looking for a book to buy for anyone in their late teens.
Trigger Warnings: underage sex, mental health, coercive relationships.
