Any Joe

They knew each other growing up and they're full-fledged adults in 2013, but their lives are aimed in vastly different directions. Joe is arrested and charged with felony sex offenses, while Cherie is in graduate school, on the path to a promising career. Joe and Cherie grew up in the same neighborhood, shared a mutual adolescent crush, and came from loving, if imperfect homes. As adolescents, both experienced life-changing trauma. This is the story of how two young people negotiate the influences of their environment, and family and peer relationships, amidst societal and cultural change in the mid 1990's and early 2000's, a time flooded with sexual explicitness and morally ambiguous messages. These phenomena complicate Joe and Cherie's lives by playing on their individual vulnerabilities, especially in the face of corruption and cruelty. Once Joe and Cherie reconnect as adults, their past experiences and human frailties come back into play, rendering untenable prospects for their future. This is a novel about Joe and Cherie, two young people who must negotiate their environment, and family and peer influences in the morally ambiguous, sexually-infused culture of the 1990's and early 2000's. Can they stay true to themselves, or will they succumb to the worst effects of adversity? Their story is one we can all relate to on some level