Black Ice

Black Ice by Lorene Cary
2010
Weight: 1 lb
Method of Disposal: Lending Library

I have no idea where I got this book.  Another lending library?  I am glad I grabbed it from wherever I did.  It is an autobiography about a woman I knew nothing about before reading it, but I cared about her right away.  She is a bright and motivated young girl that grew up in Philadelphia and went to an elite school in New Hampshire in the 70's.  The school was predominantly white, but it had begun accepting black students before she attended.  She got there and was tokenized but also taught and encouraged.  She found close friends and attempted to find herself.  Ultimately, she would become a teacher at that same school.  She clearly has conflicting emotions and feelings about her time there, understandably.  A teenager would anyway, but with being transplanted from one city and experience to another city and experience, while feeling the pressure to perform above average as a black teenage girl on a scholarship, it would have been overwhelming.  Lorene strives and succeeds and then she allows us into her private thoughts during that time.  It is great all around.























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Cringe

Cringe: Teenage Diaries, Journals, Notes, Letters, Poems, and Abandoned Rock Operas
Ed Sarah Brown
2008
Weight: 1.4 lbs
Method of Disposal: Donating

So much fun!  I loved reading Cringe.  It was hilarious.  I really appreciated the adult responses to the teenage love, angst, excitement.  Some of the authors had me laughing quite loudly, while all alone in my bedroom. 

I could, of course, and unfortunately, relate.  I wrote out wills and testaments.  I wrote love letters and fan letters trying to proclaim how not weird I was being to Gillian Anderson.  Things like, "I just really love you.  Not in a creepy way.  But I have to meet you.  Not to be weird."  So so scary.  SO glad Gillian probably never had to read them, but I feel bad for whoever did.  Or not.  I think I want THAT job.  I could read and respond to fan mail.  Totes!  Imagine the stories you could tell at the bar.

I also quoted Ani Difranco ALL. THE. TIME.  And turned in bizarre, worrisome, self-important bullshit to my teachers.  These pictures all show parts of an autobiography I wrote for class in high school.  Note the psychology appointments, the make-up down my eyes, the huge pants, hair colors, the walls of my bedroom, and the sad/absurd pictures of me dressed for a friend's funeral and me crying over breaking up with my "spiritual affinity."  Who thinks these are good picture taking times?  Who?

 

 

I, of course, am the hunched over girl in the Nine Inch Nails shirt.  I was not at all obsessed with the girl on the left...

Thank God for nice, patient teachers that do not write notes to students that say "Get over yourself!  You have hardly lived yet!"  I thought this teacher was MEAN but, after this note, and a few good book suggestions, I secretly loved her.  I am sure I showed her my appreciation by staring at her like I am looking at the camera in the picture with my dad, stepmother, and brother above.



 

Durable Goods

Durable Goods by Elizabeth Berg
1994
Weight: 8.8 oz
Method of Disposal: Giving to Tracy

I was smitten with the first half of this book.  I loved the 12 year old girl and, though we were very different at that age and living in entirely different circumstances, I felt I could relate or remember so much through Berg's descriptions.  Katie is an inquisitive little girl with a slightly older best friend who believes herself to be the walking source guide on womanhood and femininity.  Her dad is an abusive military man that keeps her and her older sister moving about the country.  Their mother is dead after having suffered illness.  Berg really captures the agony of pre-teen-dom.  I am so impressed.

The last half is heartbreaking.  It is still good, but it did not have the same magic the first part had.  I do believe I have found a book I recommend.  It is a quick read, and you will care about the main characters.