Book Review

Clearly I have been blogging too much.  I am about to discuss books.  Who do I think I am?  Oprah?  What's next?  A favorite things list?  Good grief.

Actually, these aren't my favorite books or even books I would necessarily recommend.  Rather, they are books that fed into my "high school on the brain" mentality.

Silver Girl by Elin Hilderbrand is a fictionalized story of a Ruth Madoff-like character named Meredith Delinn.  Meredith is quite sympathetic (like I said, FICTION) in her need to escape from scrutiny and transition to the next, drastically different, stage of her life.  As Meredith and her friend Connie prepare Connie for her first date after becoming a widow, Meredith says, "This is high school all over again."  "'That's what life is,' Connie said, 'It's high school, over and over again.'"  Huh?  Well, it sure beats middle school over and over again.

 

And I am off and on with Alexandra Robbins, The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth: Popularity, Quirk Theory, and Why Outsiders Thrive After High School.  The title pretty much says it all, but you can also check out the NYTimes book review.  The author introduces her bias early with a wonderful quote from J.K. Rowling - "Nothing is more unnerving to the truly conventional that an unashamed misfit."

Robbins argues that teens really need to know that adolescence is temporary, Hilderbrand's characters think it lasts forever.  What do you think?