Laurabelle's Blog

A few weeks ago, when I shadowed Mike at the Issaquah reference desk, I was introduced to quite a few YA books that I wanted to read, including one by Megan McCafferty called Sloppy Firsts. It covers a year in the life of a sixteen-year-old girl named Jessica who is perfectly normal, especially in the fact that she feels completely abnormal. (Needless to say, I identify enormously with her, even though I'm theoretically 23.) Jessica is perhaps a little more objective than I'd expect a real teenager to be, but that's acceptable since the novel is told in first-person, epistulary style. (Who really wants to see exactly what's in a teenager's head? Eww!)

There are two things I love about this book. One is Jessica's sense of humor; even though she's in the midst of her trials and tribulations with girlfriends and (potential) boyfriends, she's still able to laugh at herself and her situation:

Manda thinks that reading feminist manifestos makes up for her borderline ho-bag behavior. I'm pretty sure that's why she wears Poindexter glasses instead of contacts, so she seems less sexual and more intellectual. She's not fooling anyone, though. Hope and I called her The Kissing Slut because she'd made out with thirty-one different guys by her fifteenth birthday. That's when she decided it was time to move on to manual stimulation, so we christened her Lend-A-Hand-A-Manda. And when she turned sixteen, well, let's just say she earned the title The Headmaster.

Manda calls herself an extreme virgin and intends on keeping it that way until she finds someone who meets all her criteria: six feet tall; drives a Jeep; lean and cut, but not meathead muscular; blond; surfs in summer, skis in winter; flosses daily. She knows this is a tall order—especially at Pineville—so she settles for messing with one Mr. Wrong after another until Mr. Right comes along.

As someone who's gotten through but not over being a teenager, I appreciate Jessica's sense of humor. It helped me to laugh at my own teenage self, as painful as I would have found it at the time. (Man, I hope I can avoid laughing at my kids when they're teenagers. It was so painful when my parents did it, even if I deserved it.)

The other thing I love about Sloppy Firsts is that it avoids any trace of preachiness when addressing weighty sex-related issues. It never tells its readers not to have sex (not that such a strategy works anyway, just ask our worthy right-wing leaders how that AIDS epidemic's doing), just tries to get them to think about the issues, like statutory rape.

There's a great conversation that would be hilarious if it weren't so tragic. Jessica's friend Sara went to Cancun over spring break and lost her virginity to some college frat boy. Upon her return, street-wise Hyacinth clues her in:

So does Bender know that you're only sixteen?

Fifteen, corrected Sara.

Fifteen, amended Hy.

No, said Sara. I figured I'd tell him the truth later.

Hmmmm...

Hmmmm... what? asked Sara.

Well, technically, he raped you.

WHAT?!

He was twenty-one. You were fifteen. That's statutory rape.

Omigod! No it's not! I was drunk off my ass, but I wanted to do it.

Doesn't matter, said Hy. The law's the law.

This approach strikes me as infinitely better than just telling teens what to do. Let them make their own decisions, because they're going to anyway, but make sure they're thinking about the important issues before they become an issue: pregnancy, STDs, statutory rape.

There's a new sequel out since last month, called Second Helpings. Needless to say, I've got it on hold.