As a woman in my 30s, I am definitely aware of the presence and significance of Judy Blume. And the fact that she recently celebrate her 80th birthday! (You hang in there, Judy). I read all the classics in my youth and read Summer Sisters a few years ago. I remember the former being formative and the latter not really at all, and that should have been an indicator of how I would feel about this book: a resounding shoulder shrug. I would say I […]
Exit onto Revolutionary Road for bleak amazingness
I recently reconnected with a good friend of days gone by, and we started chatting books, which led to shipping books to each other, and he sent this one along as one of his favorites. I had a vague memory of the movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, never having seen it, just aware of its existence, but wasn’t familiar with the story in the least. I had my friends stellar recommendation to go on and was confident I would like it, but did […]
A bit of a disappointing last book for Judy Blume.
Like most children born in the 1970s and 1980s (and I hope, the 1990s), Judy Blume books made frequent and prolonged appearances in my household. My personal favorites were always the Fudge books. I was (and still am) a lover of scatological and body humor, so Fudge eating his brother Peter’s turtle always appealed to me on a base level. And of course, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret was there to ease me into puberty and ask all the awkward questions. I never got around to reading her […]
A nostalgic visit to my early teens
Ponyboy Curtis is an orphan. He lives with his two older brothers, Darry, who works construction and Sodapop, who dropped out of school to work in a garage to help support the family. Ponyboy and his friends are Greasers, kids with leather jackets and long, grease-slicked hair from working class backgrounds, often with a lot of trouble at home. Quite a few of the Greasers are part of gangs and having a criminal record isn’t all that uncommon. Ponyboy would much rather be a Greaser […]