The Publisher Says: Easy summers lead to hard falls in this Grease meets Mean Girls contemporary romance…
When seventeen-year-Real Rating: 2.5* of five
The Publisher Says: Easy summers lead to hard falls in this Grease meets Mean Girls contemporary romance…
When seventeen-year-old Renata Carpenter hijacked her stepdad’s classic car, she hadn’t planned on totaling it and landing her best friend in a cast from hip to heel. She definitely hadn’t planned on being sent to a work program in New Orleans as punishment. And she certainly hadn’t planned on falling in love.
But Ren’s summer of forced manual labor has a bright side: her name is Brit, and she’s everything Ren never knew she needed. First love becomes first heartbreak when their summer romance comes to a crashing close earlier than anticipated. Adding insult to injury, Ren’s break-up with Brit is followed by a big move to a small town.
As if starting senior year completely alone isn’t bad enough, Ren soon discovers that the Hell on Heels mean girl who rules Sun Ridge Prep with an iron fist and a vicious tongue is none other than her first love. Too bad this Brit is far from lovable.
But Ren knows the girl beneath the façade, and she refuses to give up on rekindling their relationship. Secretly, the girls pick up where they left off, falling deeper in love and risking it all to be together. But when their affair is exposed by Brit’s boyfriend, Ren and Brit are faced with the ultimate choice: love or acceptance.
Because they certainly can’t have both.
I RECEIVED THIS BOOK AS A PROMOTION. THANKS!
My Review: The author markets this as a YA title. I disagree. I'd hesitate before I gave it to a sixteen-year-old, or a naïve seventeen-year-old. So let's say it's more a New Adult title.
It's definitely on the money with the Mean Girls comparison. Ren is a classic Mean Girl. She's also a very horny character, and no respecter of boundaries. Brit: "I'm not gay!" Ren: "Get a load of those tits! Such a sweet pair of [upper]lips!"
Then there's the slur usage. I get reclaiming words, and even use queer myownself these days. That was a nasty one in my youth. But using slurs and only slurs? Not now, not ever. That's reinforcing abuse.
While I thought Brit was toying with Ren's feelings...denying you're gay does NOT absolve you of responsibility for behaving sexually with someone of the same sex...I found Ren deeply dislikable and overbearing. Brit's manipulative. Neither is someone I'd like to spend any more time with.
The main issues above weren't made better by the way the story is structured, with time-gaps that just make the chemistry between these two feel very unlikely for teens to experience. The writing was okay, with flashes of creative interest once in a while. Not a favorite read. Caveat emptor re: sexual content....more
The Publisher Says: For twenty years, Terry Bisson published a regular “This Month in History” column in the science fiction magazine Locus. TomorrowiThe Publisher Says: For twenty years, Terry Bisson published a regular “This Month in History” column in the science fiction magazine Locus. Tomorrowing collects these two decades of memorable events—four per month—each set in a totally different imaginary yet possible, inevitable yet avoidable future. From the first AI president to the first dog on Mars to the funeral of Earth’s last glacier, these stories are speculative SF at its most (and least) serious. Collected as a series for the first time, Tomorrowing will amuse, alarm, intrigue, entertain, and like all good science fiction, make readers think. Bisson’s short stories have won every major award in science fiction, including the Hugo and the Nebula, but never, ever anything for this series.
My Review: You like alternate history? You like browsable books? You like to be left with thoughts and ideas to chew over as you slip into wherever it is we go when we fall asleep?
Here's you a book. Author Bisson, who died in January at 81, worked for decades in the SF field. Known for planting little seeds of progressiveness in a field dominated by the idiot libertarian/reactionary goofballs who...well, that's a screed for a different day. Bisson turned a hand at every type of writing, these columns show how much there was to do in the genre. Twenty years of tilling the field and he never repeated himself....more
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