SEVENTEENTH SUMMER by Maureen Daly

by | Jun 13, 2006 | Need to Read

Okay…this is making me crazy!
Although I’m still reading manuscripts from my group, I’m also reading a YA (you can’t carry loose manuscripts from bed to the table to the glider to your desk…you just need a book for that). I picked up a book at the library called SEVENTEENTH SUMMER. It’s one of those splashy pink covered YAs with a girl and boy hugging on the front. Now, I have to admit that I generally haven’t been drawn to these types of books since I was about fifteen, but the selection at our small town library is quite limited and this caught my eye. I also don’t read the back of a book, but I saw that The New York Times really liked it, so…

Now here’s where it gets strange. From the first page I thought the language was a bit odd, kind of dated…the girl referred to guys as “fellas”, stuff like that. Now, being the book detective that I am, about the third time something struck me as old fashioned, I checked the copyright. 1942. Yes…1942. Okay…that explains a lot.

What really burns me up is it’s a lovely story, but why would any teen read it? They’ve marketed it as a contemporary romance by putting a graphic blue and pink cover on it, with contemporary kids in the photo, and you just KNOW it’s a new YA, right? So, if you’re a teen and you pick up this book and the girl is fretting about whether she’s fast or not because she let the boy kiss her on the THIRD date, are you gonna just think this is a weird book or what? Yeah…I think you are. And I think you’d drop it quick because I mean, really…if she’d slept with him, okay, but kissing him was a HUGE deal? That’s just lame…

Unless…

Suppose they’d put some sort of vintage picture on it, or even added 1942 to the the section heading (which is “June” so it lends itself to it beautifully) then anyone would pick this up and have a nostalgic look at romance in the forties. I love these kinds of books that are not historical fiction, but actually written then (if they’re done well). I mean, don’t you get a kick out Beverly Cleary’s SISTER OF THE BRIDE or FIFTEEN? I really think that when Pocket Books reprinted this they missed the boat. But maybe no one cares but me…Oh, and this isn’t just an old copy sitting around our library, because they also had it in hardback, same cover, and it looked brand new.

Okay…that’s my rant!

Read well.
Joelle