Girl Crazy
by Russell Smith
Tightly plotted and fast paced, Girl Crazy is a cinematic ride through one man’s obsession with a younger woman. Justin, a dissatisfied community college teacher, meets Jenna and is attracted at once to her mixture of toughness, vulnerability and ripe sexuality. Jenna is unlike anyone Justin has ever known -- through her he discovers a world of drugs and sex, casual violence and intimidation that at first frightens and then thrills him.
Justin falls deeper into Jenna’s thrall, particularly as her erratic behaviour keeps him guessing. When Jenna ends the relationship abruptly, Justin finds he isn’t willing to let go of this new life, or of Jenna, without a fight.
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"Daring and well executed. ...Most will likely fixate on the sex in Girl Crazy, and why not? Smith writes it well; nary a cringe-worthy adjective, and raw enough to be real. But Girl Crazy is more about class than it is about sex. ...Girl Crazy is a hot floor show for those of us desperate for the present to finally get its time in the Canadian literary spotlight."
- Zoe Whittall, Globe and Mail ()
