Monthly Archives: March 2013
A New Penny By Bianca Bradbury
Or: So You’ve Decided to Ruin Your Life. Most YA works dealing with teen pregnancy end before the baby is delivered; Bianca Bradbury takes a different route and instead paints a relentlessly grim portrait of young marriage.
Movie Madness and/or Mania: The Violent Years (William Morgan, 1956)
The Violent Years sort of has the reputation as the “best” movie that Edward D. Wood Jr. (Plan 9 From Outer Space, Glen or Glenda and so, so many more…) was involved with; but really, one needs to discard traditional … Continue reading
Pretty In Pink: A Novel By H.B. Gilmour Based On The Original Screenplay By John Hughes
Is there anything less promising than the phrase “A novel based on the original screenplay by…”? Perhaps even less so when that phrase is followed by “John Hughes”? Let me get my personal bias out of the way: these are … Continue reading
The Boy Who Drank Too Much By Shep Greene
YA fiction of a certain vintage that attempts to tackle topical issues tends to do so in very black-and-white terms: if you have premarital sex, you will get pregnant and ruin your life; one puff on a joint (or as … Continue reading
Magazine Madness and/or Mania: Seventeen, February 1973
How has Seventeen, that giant in the world of teen rags, changed over the last forty years? Mostly by becoming younger and smaller. How old is that cover-model? 40? A special supplement for newlyweds? And it is huge! September-issue Vogue huge! Look how it … Continue reading
Party Line By A. Bates
1989 is the nominal endpoint of books that I plan on covering here- I always find it interesting that the relatively recent books date so much more quickly than their older counterparts. If this book had been written in the … Continue reading
