Quantcast
>

Friday Fiction – Girl Gives Birth to Own Prom Date

By | Feb 22, 2013

Girl Gives Birth to Own Prom Date
Strasser
1996

Submitter:I have to say I’m too creeped out to even open this item. We are a public library, and this was weeded from our Young Adult collection last week. As a former high school English teacher, I found my head swimming when I saw the “freak show” title strangely combined with the innocuous cover graphic.

Holly: Now, now.  We have to at least glance at the content before weeding.  Although, I have to say the title alone made me do a double-take!  The title looks like a newspaper headline; maybe a tabloid.  You know, “aliens ate my baby” and the like.  That could make for a fun teen book, actually!

I dug deeper, and the description on WorldCat says, “When Brad asks someone else to the senior prom, Nicole resorts to a desperate measure–she decides to make her next-door neighbor over into a dream date.”  Now you KNOW teens love that kind of thing.  I’d still weed this book, but mostly because it’s old.  I’d be interested in knowing how many times it circulated, but even then you wouldn’t know if it was just because the title got peoples’ attention.

All that said, I am a little creeped out by the photo head on the girl and the boy when everything else is cartoony.  It’s like that stalker art you see in movies.  Ick.

15 Comments so far
  1. mantramoon February 22, 2013 9:32 am

    Yes, the cover is truly atrocious!

  2. Susan Hotalling February 22, 2013 11:32 am

    Todd Strasser goes after social issues with a biting edge in his books – the one that is currently catching attention is Give a Boy a Gun. Take a look at the info on that one and think about recent events (hint: Sandy Point). You might want to see if you have that one in the ol’ collection, always good to know what is available to your patrons.

  3. Kate February 22, 2013 11:58 am

    This book became the movie “Drive Me Crazy” in the early 2000s (or very late 1990s–it heavily features the Britney Spears song of the same name). I believe it was republished with that title and a tie-in cover.

  4. Scott February 22, 2013 12:25 pm

    You’d weed a book from 1996 because it’s old? God help us.

  5. Hollis February 22, 2013 12:52 pm

    The cover is beyond atrocious! And I am really disappointed since I thought it would be about time travel, and she would have a baby, travel to the future, and then go to the prom witht the now-grown-up boy child. I feel cheated. . . .

  6. Margaret February 22, 2013 1:12 pm

    Too intriguing not to do a little research. Apparently this book was aka “How I Created My Perfect Prom Date,” and was a moderately successful 1999 teen flick called “Drive Me Crazy.” The movie also underwent a name change; it was originally “Next To You” but was renamed for the Britney Spears song on the soundtrack. (Thanks, Wikipedia.) Now I want to watch the movie.

  7. Rosy February 22, 2013 1:31 pm

    I read this book and loved it as a teen! The title is a reference to one of the main characters, a popular girl who often talks in “headlines”.
    Also, they made a movie based off the book called Drive Me Crazy, starring Melissa Joan Hart and Adrian Grenier, which I remember watching obsessively on VHS :)

  8. Jamison February 22, 2013 2:02 pm

    I see that in our catalog it is called “How I created my perfect prom date.” Definitely a more apt title then the title shown here!

  9. Angel February 22, 2013 4:38 pm

    Scott, we’re talkin’ teen pop fiction which ages quickly. This book was on a library shelf before the current freshman class was even born. Time time to replace with the new cover!

  10. katz February 22, 2013 6:08 pm

    I, like Hollis, am sorely disappointed that there isn’t a Terminator-style time-travel plot.

  11. Dinah February 22, 2013 9:20 pm

    If nothing else, it’s a catchy title (as in, it catches your eye!).

  12. J February 22, 2013 9:24 pm

    Todd Strasser is still a big name in young adult fiction. In this case, the weeding decision should probably be based on whether it’s circulating. If people are still checking it out, who cares how old it is?

  13. Alex February 23, 2013 11:39 pm

    @Angel, @ Scott: I agree with Angel; for this type of thing, 1996 is old. I was a “read everything in the library” type of kid (I expect many of us were), but books older than I was got pushed to the bottom of the list (unless it had a horse in it).

  14. Christine Bellessis February 25, 2013 10:10 am

    Fortunately, I didn’t weed this; our teen librarian did the de-selecting on this gem. The publication date didn’t matter, I guess, since the cover graphic is creepy, and he needs room in his collection.
    I have to repeat that I so enjoy awfullibrarybooks.net! We have a Pinterest board called “Books for Guy Montag” and we are so lucky to pin from this site:)

  15. BC March 6, 2013 11:29 pm

    This is the book that the movie Drive Me Crazy is based on! I’ve seen it also titled as How I Created My Perfect Prom Date (and with lesss weird cover art). I haven’t read the book (though I have heard that it is better than the movie), but I adored the movie.

    Link to more modern cover art – http://books.google.ca/books?id=IcdeD3grLP4C&source=gbs_book_other_versions

Leave a Comment

If you would like to make a comment, please fill out the form below.

Name (required)

Email (required)

Website

Comments

© 2007-2013