My Mother’s Boyfriend and Me
Jacoby
1987
This title gave me the creeps. Evidently Laurie’s mom (widowed when Laurie was a baby) went off the rails and starting dating a very cool dude named “Blue” (cuz of his eyes!). Two week after meeting this dude, Mom invites Blue to move in. Laurie notices that the guy is creeping on her and tries to tell Mom, but she defends Blue. Seriously, the guy’s nickname is Blue and he wears a gold chain and his shirt partially unbuttoned-even in the 1980s that was a creepy kind of look.
It gets worse. The stress of the situation causes Laurie to lose weight and sleep. Blue steps it up with threats to Laurie. Laurie’s friend’s family takes her in and seems to be the only one concerned about this situation. Eventually, Laurie’s mom confronts Blue and he breaks up with her.
The ending is awful. Mom invites Laurie back to the house now that Blue is gone. Laurie is cautious, but runs into Blue at the house and he assaults her. Mom comes in and Blue takes off. I get the feeling from the book, that nothing happens with authorities since she didn’t ACTUALLY get raped. Mom starts to listen and then get appointments with therapists.
Excuse me, I need shower the metaphorical crud of this book off me.
Mary
I too am skeeved out.
Blue should have been arrested. Even in 1987 the cops might have tuned him up a bit for being a child molester.
Maybe Laurie and her friend and friend’s family can at least start a whispering campaign against him.
“The stress of the situation causes Laurie to lose weight and sleep.” Characters in fiction always lose weight when they’re under stress. Unless the book explicitly deals with an eating disorder, they never start stress-eating and gain ten pounds.
Cashmere breathes? Since when?! Every time I try wearing cashmere, I end up covered in sweat.
The ending may be “awful,” but it was probably a pretty accurate representation of the experiences of a lot of girls in the ‘80s (and today).
I wonder if the antagonist’s name is author playing word games. Blue as in blue beard? Blue as in off-color?
If it were you or me, maybe.
Somehow I don’t think this author is that clever. It’s just the color of his eyes. He could as easily have been named “Green”, “Hazel”, or “Brown”.
A nasty man with criminal sex acts named “Hazel” would make this seem inept, which it may be now.
At least Laurie’s mom doesn’t accuse het of seducing Blue.
Since when is liking museums a “kid thing”?
This isn’t the first time that Laurie’s mom has found herself in a (potentially) problematic relationship. If you do the math, there’s a 20 year age gap between Laurie and her mother. (36-16=20) Laurie’s father was 31 when he died when she was just a few months old, and Laurie’s mother was only 20. The standard “How much older can the older partner be before this relationship is squicky” calculation is: 1/2(Age of older partner)+7=Just the Right Side of Squicky. 1/2(31)+7=22.5