Willow ,'Sleeper'
There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."
Thanks, Jesse! I've been trying to follow all of the responses, but there are so very many at this point.
I want to marry the writer of that piece, though, just for this:
If depression were treatable with copies of Cherry Ames, Jungle Nurse, they wouldn't make medication for it.
Linda Holmes is the best. And has been since she was Miss Alli on TWOP.
I remember reading things like Go Ask Alice , Rosemary's Garden , The Bell Jar when I was in the YA stage.
Do you mean I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, sumi?
Yes, that is exactly what I read. Apparently, it damaged me so much that I can't even remember the title.
Yeah, that was a rough one. Excellent book, but not pretty in any sense of the word.
When I was in my teens, the books aimed at my age group were ... well, they didn't have a lot of substance. I read them - they were usually about girls trying to get the boy they "loved" as a boyfriend. I read a lot of Nancy Drew. And, until I was 12, I'd sneak into the adult section of the library and crouch on the floor to read "grown up" books. Once I hit 12, they'd let me actually check them out and read them at home. But I'd reread the Wizard of Oz books, and I'd read my father's science fiction, and my mother's Shakespeare from her college classes and, well, just about anything I could put my hands on (at breakfast I'd read the cereal box if nothing else was to hand).
I think having YA books that deal with the lives kids are actually living - all the mess and the misery and awful things that happen - give them the assurance that they aren't the only ones, that life isn't a mess because there's something wrong with them. Trying to pretend that life is always beautiful is just a lie. And, to paraphrase Mira Grant, the truth and a lie can both hurt you, but only one will heal you afterwards.
We had Lisa Bright and Dark assigned to us in middle school. An interesting and, well, depressing choice.
I loved Go Ask Alice when I was young. If anything, it's probably one of the reasons I never tried drugs.
Oh - to continue the saga of my trying to get Deadline - release date was officially May 31, but the local Barnes & Noble (only bookstore downtown at this point) said it was June 1. When I went down on June 2 to pick up a copy, it was nowhere to be found. I had two people looking for it - seemingly, it was hidden somewhere in their back area. When I went down at lunchtime to get something else, I checked - it's STILL not on the shelves. grrrr