Have to say this...

I read a book today that I HAAAAAAATED. Totally hated. As in, I wish I could pull my brain from my head and vacuum out any memories of or thoughts related to what I read. Ugh!!! Worse part is, not only did I buy it, I actually wasted one of my precious book gift certificates on it.

So, here's the deal: I hate lesson-y books. You know the ones that preach to you under the guise of some naive character learning a lesson without actually getting damaged or hurt in any way. This trend used to be particularly prevalent in one of my favorite genres, YA, back when I was a kid. But lately, these books (and the authors) have gotten sooo much better. The kids in the story are like real kids. Some of them are shallow, some of them are nice, some of them are misguided and clueless, etc., etc. But they make mistakes and they regret them. They try to figure things out and sometimes they really, really blow it. But that's the way life works.

In this book, the young naive main character (let's call her YNMC) has a crush on a hot guy who is suddenly interested in her instead of his current hot girlfriend. He sneaks over to her house, they share a few midnight kisses, but he hasn't officially broken up with his girlfriend. Well, YNMC eventually puts her foot down and he breaks up with the girlfriend, but now YNMC's friends all hate her because they're also friends with the former girlfriend. One friend warns her that the hot guy is only interested in YNMC instead of hot ex-girlfriend because of "one thing." Cliche after cliche! Can everyone see the after school special lesson coming?

(Oh, and as a sidenote, she, who has never been noticed before--by her own admission--eats one lunch at the jock table, flirts a little with some of the guys and suddenly she's tagged as easy and guys are phoning her house constantly. Okay, maybe this happens, but after only one incident of mildly flirtatious behavior?!? And the hot guy, now interested in her, says he's heard nothing about it and does not seem disturbed by it. No guy, especially one who is genuinely interested in a girl, is going to be all "eh" when he hears guys talking about his new girlfriend as easy!)

So, anyway, the entire book turns out to be about one issue, pre-marital sex. Should she, shouldn't she? Does her like her only for that reason? Etc. Of course, characters who do have sex are immediately shown behaving selfishly and evilly and then find themselves heartbroken. Whereas the people who wait are all lovey-dovey and wonderful to each other, clearly the couple to emulate. Blah! Seriously. While this may be accurate in some cases, is there a more simplistic, agenda-driven way to shove a message down a reader's throat? Why not show what really makes life decisions like this difficult? That the line is not black and white. All people who have premarital sex are not evil and destined for heartbreak. And yet some high school guys will say anything to have sex and they're a**holes.

But beyond this obviously moralistic take on story telling (I wish Barnes and Noble would create a new category for this crap so I wouldn't accidentally buy it), it was just a lame story. She decides not to have sex and hopes the guy respects her for it. Okay, good for her. Except I could see that coming from about page 3. I kept waiting for the twist (which is the only reason I read it all the way to the end), waiting for the thing that would make me relate YNMC's struggle. But it just wasn't there. The story wasn't interesting, and I wouldn't think that for someone who is wrestling with that decision in her life that it would be all that helpful either. You know what would be helpful is seeing her make a decision, get her heart scraped all over the floor and figure out how to survive the rest of high school. I don't actually care what her decision about sex is, just that it shows her becoming an independent person, struggling with her decisions and the consequences of them. But there was none of that!

Oh, and the worst part, oh, yes, it gets worse, was the overall theme of the book. I actually liked the theme in the beginning, which was part of what encouraged me to buy the book. The idea was that everyone has different voices in their head, the angel and the devil on your shoulders, for lack of a more original description. I liked this idea because I do understand that. The struggle we go through daily as we figure out which voice to listen to. But the book practically comes out and states that exact thing. Like in those very words. I mean, seriously, by that time in the story, I would have thought they could have declared a world-wide shortage of anvils, but nope, she managed to save the biggest one for last. I still have the headache.

Ugh...*full body shudder*

For YA books that handle the pre-marital sex topic sooooo much more deftly, try any of the following:

Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld

Sloppy Firsts by Megan McCafferty

Or any of the three most recent Princess Diaries books by Meg Cabot

It is possible. It can be done with sensitivity and without agenda. This book, however, just ain't it.