Author: Lindsey Leavitt
Enjoyment Rating: ****
Source: Library Copy
This book would be rated: PG
It begins innocently enough. Mallory gets on her boyfriend Jeremy's computer to get started on a homework assignment they're working on together. The window is open to the equivalent of Facebook, and before she realizes quite what she's doing, she discovers that Jeremy's avatar is married to a someone in an online game, and he's writing deeply personal emails to the girl who is his online wife. So Mallory dumps his sorry butt and heads off with her dad to help clean out her grandma's house. At Grandma's she discovers a journal her grandma wrote her junior year of high school, filled with goals of things like starting a pep club and making a formal dress. Mallory feels like the modern world has made her own life way too complicated, so she eschews all modern technology (basically anything not available in 1962), and decides to make her grandma's goals her own.
The story has a cute premise, and Mallory has a great voice. I also think that Leavitt does a nice job capturing the supporting characters, both male and female. The book made me laugh out loud in certain places, and my daughter wanted to read it based on the cover and what she read on the jacket. My main quibbles are that Leavitt takes the book in some serious places with some of the side stories (involving the mother and grandmother, in particular), and I found myself more interested in those stories than I was in the main rebound romance story. And while I applaud the ways that she mirrors some of the issues Mallory is experiencing through the side stories, I felt that they were too easily resolved and got short shrift. But overall, an enjoyable read, and one I think teenage girls would definitely enjoy.
1 comment:
Making note of this for Annie.
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