Gossip Girls

This book wasn’t what I expected. I thought that it would only be an entertaining story about the glamorous lives of young rich teens in the city living like they were 25. I thought I would find it a little shallow and unrealistic in its portrayal of the teens living the high life in New York city and there would be little that teens not living that life would really be able to relate to. I was wrong. I don’t know if it is because I am an older woman reading this book and not a teen, but there was a constant sadness that I couldn’t get away from. Here were these characters who seemed to have everything that a teenager could dream of: money, popularity, perfect looks, great clothes (I didn’t know half of the designers but they sounded impressive). But their lives were still extremely complicated and hard despite all of their advantages. There were so many different mini drama tornadoes through the entire book that I could fill the whole posting with the different issues brought up by Cecily von Zieger, who seems to sound like she may have been similar to the Serena character in her own life. There was love, sex, drugs, alcohol, bulimia, sexuality, divorce, smoking, body image, popularity, and so on. I felt like I was in some kind of crazy soap opera New York where life was never as perfect as it seemed.

I was talking with a friend of mine who has two teenage daughters one morning at work about the Gossip Girl series and television show. She was saying how she would never tell her teenagers not to read it, but she hoped that they never would. I told her that it wasn’t what she thought and that the book would be a great way to open up conversations about a number of issues that her teenagers may be dealing with and that it was actually a very sad book. She said that she could see my point of view, but that she thought that I would be able to see that the lives of the characters in the book were sad because I am older and have more experiences. She said that most teenagers she knows, including her children to a certain extent, would admire the fabulous lives that these teens were living and wouldn’t see the unpleasant things that I was seeing. She feels that are no real strong female characters or celebrities out there for teenagers and a book series like this only reinforces that. She said that there are teenagers who are actually looking up eating disorders on the web because they want to have one. I still tried to argue that she should have her girls read it and then talk to them about the book making sure that some of the messages cleverly weaved between Tiffany’s and vacations in Sun Valley wouldn’t be lost on them. We continued to disagree and discuss until we realized that we were never going to come to an agreement. I will be giving her this book to read on her own on Monday and she said she would at least give it a chance and read it herself but she wouldn’t pass it on to her kids.

While I can understand where she is coming from, I still don’t agree. I think that the snippets of the television program that she has seen may have something to do with it, but I have also only seen snippets so I don’t know. I will be interested to see what other people thought of this book tomorrow in class. I for one was pleasantly surprised.

Prom Nights from Hell

The title of this book grabbed me from the moment I saw it on the reading list. I think they couldn’t have picked a better title to grab teens, especially teen girls who may be dreading their prom or have no interest in going. I think this book would appeal primarily to teen girls. I can’t imagine that many teen boys would have heard of or really enjoyed writers like Meg Cabot or Kim Harrison. I thought that it was interesting to see Meg Cabot step out of her comfort zone and write a short scary story. The other authors seem to be well-known horror/thriller/fantasy writers.

This book is a nice transition book for the teens who may feel like they are too old to read series like Goosebumps and Fear Street books, but are looking for that quick fix of kind of creepy and want to look like they are reading a more adult like book. I like that the stories were short and easily digestible. A teen could read them all in one sitting or pick up the book on the way to school or before bed and not have to feel like it was a heavy commitment. Some of the stories were better than others. I felt like Madison Avery and the Grim Reaper left the story too open, even for a short story, and there was really no closure for Madison. It was the longest of the group, so I would have expected more from it. The Corsage on the other hand was great. The story was a little predictable and you knew that things were going to go horribly wrong for Frankie. I was a little shocked and delighted that there was no happy ending for Frankie and Will. I thought that with most wish stories that Frankie would be able to set things right.

Again, as with every book, I would want to see what the teen was interested in. But I think what is nice about this book is that it is an anthology and there may be some stories that the teens really like and some that they like less. It is not like a typical novel where they have invested the time with only one or two characters they don’t like and a plot that they hate. That being said, I wouldn’t suggest this to a teen that would never read something in this genre and hate it just because the stories are short and varied.

Medicinal Coke?

I guess I can understand why Seventeenth Summer has been on the Booklist for as long as it has. Angie’s story is filled with emotions and fears that are probably not that uncommon to a teenage girl who thinks she is falling in love for the first time. It is fun to read what she is thinking but too afraid to say out loud. I find even as an adult, I have moments of thinking about things I would like to say but don’t. It is the window into Angie’s inner thoughts that could still make this book relevant. They are just slightly more innocent and naive than I would expect a teenager to feel, but it has been a while since I was teenage girl.

On the other hand, there were quite a few things that I thought really dated the book. The idea of kissing on a third date being somewhat scandalous was slightly amusing. I was trying just as hard as Angie to figure out what event Jack had thought may have offended her pure sensibilities. Also, the drinking age being 18 was another sign that this book was not current. The pressure for a woman to find a boyfriend or husband to make her complete was a little unsettling and very dated (at least I like to think it is). The remark that Angie’s mother makes about finding Lorraine a date to country club dance because Angie and her older sister both have them and it wouldn’t be right for the older and younger sister to have dates to the dance and not her reminded me of something straight out of Jane Austen. And then there was my favorite moment that made it clear this book was from another time. It is when Angie talks about how the Cokes are more medicinal tasting at one drugstore compared to Pete’s. I love the thought of Coke being different in one town depending on where you get it.

Overall, I was tolerant of the sugary sweetness and innocence only because I knew this book was written in 1942 (and thought came back to me on almost every page). I don’t know if I would suggest this book to a teenage reader unless they had an special affinity for romance novels.