Girls' YA Fiction

[indygirl]

Dear Lovey Hart, I'm Desperate--such love for that book and the one that followed it (or was it the first one?) with the same characters and a transfer student from the South who was trying to steal the the lead's man. And I think they drank grasshoppers. Which to my 10 year old mind was quite horrifying.

[Deleted]

Oh, man, I loved Ellen Emerson White. I actually was just rereading my copy of Life Without Friends last night--and while I was sitting through a long Power Point presentation at a workshop today I was thinking about it and decided that the perfect guy I'd like to meet would be just like Derek, the guy from the book, who is definitely literary crush material. (But if you haven't read Friends for Life or whatever it's called, don't bother. It's cringeworthy. I think the author wrote herself as a teen. I imagine that whenever she looks it over she feels embarrassed.)
I wasn't so into the President's Daughter books by her, but I understand a current day sequel has been written and was purchased by a publishing company and should be released sometime soon, though I haven't seen any official date.


My favorite Ellen Conford books were definitely the Lovey Hart books. So funny.

[Daisy Pusher]

Awww, man, I wish I still had my beloved collection of YA fiction. I could kick myself. Back in college, my mom asked if I wanted to dump all my paperbacks in a garage sale she was having. In a fit of "I'm sooo grownup now, who needs kids' books" pique, I agreed. All my original SVHs gone in an instant! Dumbass Me!

This thread has been taking me back. I had forgotten all about Dear Lovey Hart and Seven Days to a Brand New Me.

Slowly but surely I have been trying to reseed my collecton of YA when I come across something good. To that extent I have re-acquired Love and Betrayal and Hold the Mayo (ooh remeber the scene in the shed when Robbie feels Victoria's boob? Under her shirt???); The Cat ate My Gymsuit and...ah damn, what was the sequel where Marcy becomes a CIT at Ms. Finney's camp? Arggh! Anyway, that one. Cute is a Four Letter Word (the bitch girl named Halcyon!) and And you Give me a pain, Elaine, both by Stella Pevsner.

Let's see, what else. Oh, those drippy romances. I remember one called Season of Mist where our heroine fallls in love withs a ghost, a boy who had been killed back in the 1920s in a mill accident. I'll need to find that one.

Did anyone else read those YA historical romances, where the book was named after the female character? Each book set in a different time period? I still have Susannah, the brave Virginia belle, who falls in love with a Yankee soldier during the American Civil War. Craptastic!

Damn, I may need to hit Half-Price Books now.

[dwanollah]

And you Give me a pain, Elaine,

I loved that one, even though it took such an incredibly unexpected sad turn at the end.

I'm so glad I'm a packrat and saved everything. I still have all of my YA books from when I was in JrHi, and several years back, I dug 'em out of storage and had all sorts of fun with 'em.

[linared]

Did anyone else read those YA historical romances, where the book was named after the female character? Each book set in a different time period? I still have Susannah, the brave Virginia belle, who falls in love with a Yankee soldier during the American Civil War. Craptastic!

I did, I did! I think I still have some down in my basement. I seem remember one of about this high society girl who is sneaking out of her house to be a nurse. Her parents don't approve and the hot, brooding doctor thinks she is a spoiled brat, but she is determined to prove them all wrong. I think it was set in the 30s and of course very, very realistic.

[Cinchona]

kokopelli said:

...ah damn, what was the sequel where Marcy becomes a CIT at Ms. Finney's camp?

It was mentioned a couple of pages back: There's a Bat in Bunk Five. It's one of my favorite YA novels.

[Daisy Pusher]

You know who else I loved? Beverly Cleary. Not the Beezus and Ramona series, although I loved those, as well, but she did some teen books as well. Now those I really loved and kept. They are buried in a bookshelf somewhere (Due to space considerations I triple-stack paperbacks). They were sooo fifties!

Anyone else remember Jean and Johnny? Shy, bespectacled wallflower Jean has a crazy crush on Johnny, the most popular boy in school. But she ends up happier with shy, bespectacled nerdy Homer at the big dance at the end. You just know Homer was the type of guy who would get in on the ground floor at IBM later in life and become a millionaire, while Johnny would end up working as a bagger at the market.

Fifteen? Jane, the most reliable babysitter in surburban San Francisco, falls in love with new boy Stan, all the while suffering from qualms over comparisons with popular girl Marcy.

Sister of the Bride? Sensible Barbara's flighty big sister Rosemary gets married! And buys a Paul Klee print! Oooh, how bohemian!

[Deleted]

Yeah, I remember those Beverly Cleary teen novels quite well. One thing I like(d) about them is that they *actually* were quite realistic, unlike lots of other teen novels. A year or so ago, I reread Sister of the Bride and was surprised by how funny it was, which I definitely missed when I originally read it.

Also, don't forget The Luckiest Girl, which actually is based pretty closely on Cleary's own experiences in her first year of junior college in CA in the late 1930's (though for the purpose of the book she placed the main character in high school and in the 1950's).

[carrier76]

Dwan, the covers of all of those books sprawled across your mattress are priceless. SO CHEESY--and wonderful! And I had the Amy/Laura books by Marilyn Sachs and couldn't get through them either.

[Deleted]

This thread reminds me of Barthe DeClements books: Nothing's Fair in Fifth Grade, How do you Lose those Ninth Grade Blues, and Seventeen and In Between. Those books were good, but a little sad. Not those cheesy type of books Dwannolloh was referring to!