<i>Twenty Boy Summer</i> (review)
2009; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 63; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/bcc.0.1118
ISSN1558-6766
Autores Tópico(s)Media, Gender, and Advertising
ResumoReviewed by: Twenty Boy Summer Deborah Stevenson Ockler, Sarah . Twenty Boy Summer. Little, 2009290p. ISBN 978-0-316-05159-0$16.99 R Gr. 8-12 "Thirteen months ago, everything was . . . perfect." Anna's referring to her fifteenth birthday, when she discovered that her feelings for Matt, older brother of her best friend, Frankie (short for Francesca), were reciprocated. Following their incandescent first kiss, Anna and Matt secretly embarked on a romance, cut abruptly short by his shocking death only a few months later. Now Frankie, still in the dark about her best friend's lost love, is putting her grief behind her and taking Anna on the family trip to California, where the plan is to get Anna finally up to speed with boys (in other words, for her to have sex); Anna, on the other hand, finds her guilt about excluding Frankie and moving on from Matt almost more than she can bear. This is smoothly written and romantic as all get out, both with Anna's secret grief and her new romance with a sensitive and hot surfer, Sam; the scenes where the girls sneak out at night to meet their guys (Frankie has a dalliance with Sam's cousin, Jake) deftly convey the shivery thrills of forbidden encounters. Frankie is a vivid counterpoint to Anna, having reinvented herself after Matt's death as a man-eater (a characterization that proves to be mostly pose), but it's clear that she too is still grieving, and it's realistic that she's furious upon discovering that she's been shut out of a key part of her best friend's and brother's lives. Ultimately, though, this is sad longings and bittersweet new possibilities, with a beautiful ocean background and a beautiful guy and the strong suggestion of swelling strings on the soundtrack; it'll be ideal for readers looking for romance salted with a bit of tears as well as a bit of sea air. Copyright © 2009 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois
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