My high school experience (class of '85) included cliques, but only in a really mild way. There was no outright malice that I remember.

Then again, I hung around with the stoners a lot of the time, so.

In my school, the stoners were a clique. And they didn't want me.

When I was in middle school, the movie that I thought best summed up the experience was Welcome to the Dollhouse. I'm not sure I'd say the same thing now, but at the time, that was the movie that felt the most like what I thought middle school felt like.

My high school experience (class of '85) included cliques, but only in a really mild way. There was no outright malice that I remember.

Breakfast Club.

I'm also class of '85.

I was class of '88 and I see Heathers and Breakfast Club as decent representations. I was friends with people across cliques, but wasn't really in a clique myself. So, not nerdly but also not super cool.

Catcher in the Rye made me think of King Dork again. Loved that book!

In my school, the stoners were a clique. And they didn't want me.

What I meant was, maybe I didn't notice. What with the being stoned. But that was largely facetious.

There was a *lot* of crossover in my school, between dating and academics. Stoners who were on the paper, jocks who were mathletes, etc. I'm sure, as in any school, there were kids who felt left out and otherwise *outsider* but I am serious when I say, there wasn't any outright cruelty, and it was a fairly small school, so it would have been hard to miss. Which, essentially, just made high school a nice experience for *me*.

We had cliques at my high school, but no malice that I can recall. It was a small enough school that there was heavy overlap between the different sets and more than a few guys who agonized over being on the football team vs. being in the school musical.

Phineas, though? Didn't get tossed off the branch soon enough.

My sister!

My high school experience captured on film: Dazed and Confused, River's Edge, Fast Times at Ridgemont High.

I also honestly don't remember anything I read in seventh grade other than The House of Stairs. Which I think was an optional thing. Eighth grade English, I sort of remember my teacher but nothing else. Wow. I wasn't even doing drugs then.

Ninth grade I know we read Romeo and Juliet, The Red Badge of Courage, Heart of Darkness, and some short stories. I'm sure there was more, though.

I was class of '88 and I see Heathers and Breakfast Club as decent representations.

Class of '89, and these are DEAD ON.

I can't remember my first impressions of Phineas, I read it again in high school for a class and it was okay.

I loved The Outsiders and I read and reread it and also Rumble Fish. (I think that was the one).

The books I really liked, although I didn't read them in order, was the Tillerman Cycle. I read Dicey's Song first, but Homecoming is the first book.

Did anyone read To Take a Dare by Cresent Dragonwagon and Paul Zindel? About a run away. I liked it a lot and identified with the main character as being an outsider and wanting to escape her life but not for the same reasons.

I have no idea what to call the bunch of people that I usually hung out with in high school. We were spread all over the place in terms of academic stuff. A lot of us stayed in Girl Scouts years after it stopped being cool. I think that just about all the vegetarians in our grade were in our crowd. None of us drank or smoked much, mostly because we just didn't see the point. Not many of us played any sports, and when we did, it was usually track or softball, not the cool sports like soccer or basketball. Some of us were in band or chorus or the musical or drama club or various academic teams or art stuff. Most of us volunteered at the same few places -- soup kitchen, camp for disabled kids, literacy program -- during the summers and after school.