I Am the Messenger Steaminess Rating

Exactly how steamy is this story?

R

Cover your little brothers eyes (and ears) because there's some dirty stuff in this novel. It might not be the sultry sex scenes of the movies, but there's a lot going on between Audrey and all of her gentlemen callers. Ed often talks about her love life, and let's just say it's not G-rated. The novel warrants an R at the very least for its illicit subject matter. It includes several scenes of rape. When Ed first visits Edgar Street, he tells us "the bed cries out in pain. It creaks and wails and only I can hear it. Christ, it's deafening"(1.5.32). He gets more explicit as his visits go on, telling us what the man is doing to his wife. It's brutal, and we feel for the woman and the poor little girl hearing it all happen in her house. We know Ed doesn't have a filter when it comes to…well, anything, but we sure wish he did in these scenes.