Girls' YA Fiction

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I remember being simultaneously fascinated and creeped out by Marilyn Sach's The Truth About Mary Rose.

I liked her companion books about Veronica Gans (sp?)--told from different points of view--one showing her as a bully, one from her point of view, one from a friend's. It was kind of eye-opening to me as a kid, to see the shades of gray, and how the "victim" and "bully" were portrayed depending on the narrator's pov.

[emersende]

lolad said:

This thread is awesome and is bringing up so many memories! When I was a kid I was a big fan of many of Marilyn Sach's books. I recently reread some of these and man are they disturbing! The two in particular that were really weird were "A Secret Friend" and "The Fat Girl." In "Secret Friend" the main character invents a secret admirer to get the attention of her former best friend who has dropped her for another classmate. What's creepy is that the relationship between Jess, the main character and Wendy, the friend she's trying to win back is really unhealthy and almost emotionally abusive. Not to mention, Jess has a creepily close relationship with her overprotective Mom.

I remember all of that . . . it's so strange, the things I missed the first time around. Another book that I've re-read is "Ask Anybody" by Constance C. Greene. The main character becomes friends with a girl from a family of drifters and con artists. It's surprisingly serious and weirdly funny at the same time, and I really missed both those things when I was younger.

In fact, that plot description is a lot like the plot of Zilpha Keatley Snyder's book "The Changeling", which I read in junior high and re-read a few years ago. I was only slightly less awed by the book the second time around. She's just an amazing writer- "The Headless Cupid," "The Egypt Game," "A Fabulous Creature", and the Green-sky series. I've never read "The Witches of Worm," though- the premise scares the crap out of me. What an amazing writer.

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The books you read as a kid stay with you forever! Luckily I've held on to my collection - this is what my babysitting money went towards.

Sunfire books - loved them! They took one plot (girl in history must choose between rich man and poor man she loves) and ran with it. My favorites: "Nicole," a rich girl sailing on the Titanic looking for a husband, James Cameron sooo stole the plot! "Susannah" - Gone with the Wind lite. "Roxanne" - she's a 1920s starlet!

Merivale Mall series - I bought these from the Troll Book Club - monthly book newsletter that was distributed in school. Lori was the poor, pretty good girl who dated the hunky football star and Danielle was the rich snob in love with the motorcycle-riding poor bad boy. Kind of weird that the mall was the theme - Lori worked at the mall and Danielle shopped at Facades.

Sleepover Friends series - all I remember is Stephanie always wore red, black and white and her parents build her a house in the backyard for their sleepovers. That seemed weird. And they ate a ton of junk food every sleepover.

Sunset Island series - really trashy! Carrie was the Yale-attending good girl who babysat for a rock star's kids, Sam was the slutty redhead who ran around in bras and cowboy boots, Emma was the lonely rich girl.

The Fabulous Five series - kind of lame, girls who formed a club to hate on the popular girl Taffy Sinclair.

The Party Line series - girls start up a party-planning business. It was an attempt to be a new BSC but totally failed.

I also read some series in the 80s about a girl who was a model - I think her name was Kelly Something. She had curly brown hair. One plot was about how she felt fat, one plot was about if she should pose in underwear or something. ETA: I think it was called All That Glitters.

Boyfriend/Girlfriend series by Katherine Applegate. Teenagers who lived on an island took the ferry to school, how cool is that? Ben was blind, every morning Claire climbed up on a widow's walk to observe the weather. Pages from their diaries were interspersed throughout the books.

"Among Friends" by Caroline B. Cooney - Jennie Quint carries around a notebook at school and writes a play in it. I totally wanted to do that too.

"Stranger with My Face" - my favorite Lois Duncan book. Twins & astral projection are a winning combo.

Two more vague memories - a series about four girls at a summer camp. One book was about a color war... boys camp across the lake... ETA: Camp Sunnyside Friends

Bad News Ballet - a bunch of girls who hated ballet made to take ballet class.

Riverside Heights - loved these books! It was a spin-off of the Nancy Drew Case Files. Nikki was the blonde who had been unjustly accused of murder, Brittany (?) was the jealous schemer.

A series about two teenagers who got roles on a sitcom. Both had red hair. One was a bitchy former child star who had to support her family by acting, the other (Ally?) was a nice normal girl.

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I also read some series in the 80s about a girl who was a model - I think her name was Kelly Something. She had curly brown hair. One plot was about how she felt fat, one plot was about if she should pose in underwear or something. ETA: I think it was called All That Glitters.

Nuh-uh, the teen model series was imaginatively titled Kelly Blake: Teen Model. All That Glitters was about the teen soap opera, where nice girl Katie played the soap's bad girl Alicia Gately and was always conflicted about it. I loved that series. The other main characters were Shana and Mitch and I remember thinking that the models that represented them on the covers were so gorgeous - I bet if I saw them now they'd be embarrasingly 80's and cheesy.

Sunset Island series - really trashy! Carrie was the Yale-attending good girl who babysat for a rock star's kids, Sam was the slutty redhead who ran around in bras and cowboy boots, Emma was the lonely rich girl.

I loved this series too. It was so trashy, though. That dairi burger site has a few recaps of it and I didn't realise until I read them how ridiculous Sam's outfits were. Jessica Wakefield thought she was daring with her low necklines? Sam literally walked the streets in a thong!

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ronette - thanks for that clarification! and the dairiburger site is great, I hadn't seen that.

Back to Sunset Island - another favorite was when Sam designed clothes using scissors and safety pins, b/c she couldn't sew. Of course, it was a smash! I'd pay top dollar for fabric ripped and pinned together.

[ivy]

Oh, I hated those books about the Fabulous Five. I remember one was called "The Against Taffy Sinclair Club" in which the girls decide to hate on Taffy because she has started growing breasts. For real! Can anybody say "jealous bitches"? I was overdeveloped, and that book really upset me.

I liked the Sleepover Friends, but one thing confused me. The girls were always going to the mall. (I remember one of their favorite stores was called Just Juniors.) And yet they weren't supposed to be wealthy, they were middle-class girls from the suburbs. I always wondered how they could afford to shop so much.

I remember this series called "Scrambled Eggs" about stepsisters called Barri and Terri. I couldn't read more than one of those books because I kept forgetting which girl was which.

Anybody else remember a series called "Lunchroom"? Man, they were so over-the-top, it was crazy. I distinctly remember a book in which the boys in sixth grade wanted to get out of dancing lessons, so they went to the dance studio and said they were from a group called "Sons of Terrorists" (!!!) and their terrorist parents were going to launch an attack if they had to take dancing lessons. Yeah, I don't think that would fly today.

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Are any of you familiar with Jeannette Eyerly? I've never read anything by her, but the NYT just announced her death and said that she was one of the first to write YA fiction dealing with unwanted pregnancies, dropping out of school, etc.