Books for...A High School Football Field!

Hi, readers! I hope you had a great weekend from cover to cover. My plan is to get this list to fifty books – that’s two more posts after this one – and then leave you all to your reading. Thanks for looking here for suggestions. When you’ve read them all, just let me know and I’d love to start posting again.


Today’s books are best read on a high school football field (don’t tell me you’ve never tried this: it’s outside. It’s sunny. It’s where I spent lunch my entire senior year. Just watch out for the security guards – they get suspicious of people with actual books). These reads are nostalgic, fun, frothy, and girly, but they are also deep, heartfelt, and sometimes painful – just like high school. If you’re wishing your biggest problem was still trying to tell if your lab partner likes you or not, pick up one of these books. It will help you remember how much fun you had in school, and make you glad that you don’t have to deal with that drama and agony any more.

BOOKS FOR...

...A HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL FIELD!

• PROM by Laurie Halse Anderson: This book is about a girl from a poor neighborhood with way more problems than a teen girl should have to deal with. With Anderson’s classic clear-eyed no-gloss writing style, this takes the girl-wants-perfect-prom fairy tale and put it a world that feels very real. Anderson’s other books TWISTED and SPEAK are also excellent portrayals of high school that trade the trite conventions you usually find in books about high school and instead have real, flawed characters a reader can believe in and root for.

• SLOPPY FIRSTS by Megan McCafferty: This books is like my friends in high school: way smarter than anyone expected, believed, or really felt comfortable with. The story of straight-A student-scholar-athlete Jessica Darling, it follows her various foibles with depression, schools, her parents, sex, drugs, and one Marcus Flutie with an unblinking, uncompromising authenticity that is rare, and so welcome in this dark era of “vampire” “romances.” There is not a girl who has been to high school in the US in the last fifty years who doesn’t recognize some of herself in Jessica, and McCafferty’s fans are famous for saying that they are Jess Darling (yeah, whatever. There are die-hards.). The first of five equally fun and moving books in the series, this is a necessary book whose ease of reading hides its depth of vision and heart. (And I’ve met the author. She’s really cool.)

• INSIDE THE MIND OF GIDEON RAYBURN by Sarah Miller: If you have ever ad a crush on a boy, you will enjoy this book. More light-hearted than the first two selections, this is the quasi-mystery tale of boarding school, girls, boys, and first loves. And if you’re in the mood to be happy, it doesn’t spoil too much to tell you that this one, at least, has a happy ending.

• THE ASTONISHING ADVENTURES OF FANBOY AND GOTH GIRL by Barry Lyga: I read this book in one (long) sitting, in the best possible way. The characters are so endearingly strange, I just couldn’t put it down. A story of depression, artistic endeavor, love, friendship, believing in yourself, and comic conventions, it’s kind of like Paper Towns Lite if Q was a comic book nerd/hermit. This also has one of the most authentic (to my very spoiled ear) portrayal of step-family situations in any book, YA or otherwise. A quirky, squirmy, and moving read, your inner nerd will love this book, no matter how well that inner nerd is hidden.

• KEY TO THE GOLDEN FIREBIRD by Maureen Johnson: Like another of the lovely Johnson’s books I recommended a few posts previously, this book is also unexpected. When their beloved father dies, the three sisters in this Philadelphia family have to deal with everything: their mom, school, boys, alcohol, depression, softball, etc. Johnson portrays the three very different girls with unique personalities and authentic young voices, which so surprised me: this was the first book of hers I read, and I admit I was expecting a sort of Au Pairs/The Clique sappy amalgamation. I was so, so wrong! This book is smart and sad and a fun read to anyone who has ever felt over their heads in school, in family matters, or in life.

Thanks again for reading, people! Two more posts, and I’m done – for now. Next time:

BOOKS TO READ…

…IN CUTE SHOES!