Friday Fiction
Most Fridays we feature a fiction title that is usually anything pulp, odd covers, odd titles and anything else worth discussing! These are NOT necessarily awful.
Hoarding is not collection development
Two Guys! No Waiting!
Two Guys Noticed Me… and Other Miracles
Sharmat
1990 (original copyright 1985)
Our gal Jody dumped her boyfriend Matt and is now dating Travis. However, Travis and Matt are bitter rivals and Jody seems to be stuck in the middle. But wait, just as she is wrapping her head around two different guys, her mother shows up after abandoning her family for more than two years.
Marjorie Sharmat has been a library staple for decades. (Nate the Great books circulate like mad at my library.) From the reviews, I think this story might still work for today’s YA audience, but I doubt the kids could get past the cover art. In my opinion, cover art is EVERYTHING. No one wants to read a book that has cover art straight out of Mom’s high school year book.
Break out your leg warmers and cuddle up with some teen romance from the 80s,
Mary
Your Mom’s Teen Fiction:
Sarah T. is Drunk (Friday Fiction)
Sarah T.
Portrait of a Teen-Age Alcoholic
Wagner
1975
I actually remember this title from my teen years and the accompanying after school special. Linda Blair, best known for the Exorcist, (which still gives me nightmares) she was the go-to actress for all roles featuring teens in trouble ranging from unplanned pregnancy, alcoholism, hanging out with Satanic demons. You know, normal teen stuff.
Checking catalog now for a retrospective featuring Roller Boogie,
Mary
More from the 70s:
Friday Fiction – California!
California!
Ross
1981
Submitter: Just found this in the stacks today. I wish that I could have gotten a better picture of the uniform goldenrod color. Besides the very yellowed pages and cover, the book is being held together with a prayer and a wish. On a scale of gross to disgusting, it’s disgusting.
Holly: Oh good, a popular old fiction title for our readers to discuss! I can’t speak for any other public library, but my library no longer owns this title – or any other title in the Wagons West series – and we haven’t missed it. There are 15 copies available in our inter-library loan system. I wonder what kind of shape some of those are in! Submitter’s specimen is particularly…ripe.