Exactly how steamy is this story?
NC-17
This book is crazy about sex. No, really. Sure, at the beginning it's dealing with teenagers and their hormones, so of course we get random, shifting pairings of everyone in the group. People are always kissing and heading off to dark rooms together, though sometimes it's nothing more than the totally passionless kissing of Ash and Jonah or the weird pity kiss between Goodman and Jules.
When Ash and Ethan become a couple and have sex, it's basically a turning point in the book that tips all that stuff into adulthood. As the characters mature, we get a lot more detail and complexity in sexual encounters, particularly with the strong intimacy between Jules and Dennis and the extremely careful sex between Jonah and Robert. It's all messy and complicated and about adults trying to connect with each other in a basic way.
It isn't just about regular old sex and romance, though. The novel opens up some serious topics under that umbrella and dumps the uncomfortable bits all over the place. One of the biggest problems here is Goodman's alleged rape of Cathy Kiplinger, and the aftermath that does little more than alienate people from each other and allow Goodman to remain a completely static, unrepentant character.
On the non-criminal but still unethical side, the book also spends a lot of time with Ethan's unresolved feelings for Jules and his attempts (all throughout his life) to kiss and/or grope her, even he's while married to Ash.
To a lesser extent, the book also deals with the funky parts of sex, like when Ash and Jules have an in-depth conversation about the use of a diaphragm as a birth control device. While some of it can seem like an offhanded joke or satire of the sex conversations between teenagers, there are also very important moments, like when Jonah talks to a hotline about the mechanics and safety of having sex with someone who is HIV-positive.
In short: Don't read this one aloud to your grandma.