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

So I've hit the endless camping section of Deathly Hallows. Which is, in fact, endless. My Doylist explanation is that JKR felt bound to wrap the novel up at the end of the school year the way she did with all the others, even though this one wasn't set at Hogwarts.

I find this a poor consolation for endless teenager bickering and flailing about. And while Ron comes off as a jackass, and isn't actually helpful at all that I can see, he's not wrong in his disgruntlement. After the fabulous suspense of the trip into the Ministry, this whole sequence just brings the narrative flow to a shuddering halt.

Additionally, the fact that Ted Tonks, Dean Thomas, and the two Goblins just happen to camp next door to their invisible tent and spend the evening telling each other all the Wizarding news is ludicrous.

These kids have got to be very smelly by now, unless one of Hermione's charms is some sort of sonic shower. (And if this was any other fannish property, Hermione & Harry would totally have got it on at least once, but JKR doesn't do that kind of betrayal storyline.)

Lisa Bright and Dark ! I totally read that one too. But it wasn't an assignment.

erin - i just wanted to say that Roy Dotrice is reading A Dance with Dragons.

Happy Dance of Jubilation! I'm still listening to _Feast_ cuz my reading time is devoted to _deadline_ and i just can't give up partway into the story. It's improving, he's corrected some the name pronunciations. I can't believe the editors didn't go back and update the earlier transgressions!

I read Lisa, Bright and Dark in fifth grade, I think. Loved it, but it was sort the lighter version of I Never Promised You a Rose Garden.