A Bad Boy Can Be Good for a Girl

KLIATT

This amazing first novel is one of the most honest treatments of teenage sexuality to be found in YA fiction--it will definitely be provocative. Stone tells the story in poetry, and the terseness makes the feelings that much more vivid. The format is inventive: there are three girls telling the story of their seduction by the same bad boy, each in turn. Josie begins, with a series of poems about her freshman year in high school. She has confidence in herself, but finds her critical thinking skills not much help when an attractive senior boy seduces her. She is vulnerable to his attention even when she suspects he isn't always sincere, and he knows how to make her body respond to his touches and kisses. She manages to resist him sexually, and when he ditches her, she goes to the library and writes in the back of the book Forever, by Judy Blume, the details of what a jerk he is. Next to experience the "bad boy" is Nicolette, completely different from Josie. Nicolette has had sex before and prides herself on being in control of relationships. She loses control in this relationship because the sex is so exciting she believes she is in love. In actuality, he is treating her like a whore, which finally she has to face--she finds comfort in reading about Josie's experience when she is told to check in the back of Forever. The third girl, Aviva, has a different story to tell, but she too is betrayed and finds solace in the sisterhood who share their experiences. Each girl makes different choices when confronted with the attentions of an irresistible older guy who behaves shamefully. Each wants to believe she is special, the exception, the girl he really loves. Aviva, though hurt,manages to puncture his defenses. We are accustomed to stories of how much girls want to be loved, and this one doesn't contradict that truth, but adds to it the power of sexual desire. An adolescent boy's strong sex drive is a given, but here is the poetry of a girl's body responding to seduction. This will be much talked about, and every reader who has been swept away in a love affair will recognize its truth. KLIATT Codes: S*--Exceptional book, recommended for senior high school students. 2006, Random House, Wendy Lamb, 223p., Ages 15 to 18.
—Claire Rosser

VOYA

Some girls are just plain attracted to bad boys, and Josie, Nicolette, and Aviva are definitely those girls. All very different, each falls for the same senior boy who has mostly one thing on his mind. Josie is the confident freshman who falls for the senior's flattery and almost goes too far before she realizes she was just going to be another notch on his belt. Nicolette is the junior who has been around the block quite a few times and sees this bad boy as another challenge to conquer, realizing too late that the tables have been turned and that she has been used for sex. Aviva is a well-rounded and intelligent outsider in the social scene, but she allows herself to be sucked in to the mainstream by this bad boy's sweet words that warp her judgment and change her life. Written in three distinct voices of poetry prose, Stone's intimate and honest work accurately depicts both the agony and ecstasy of teenage relationships from the inside out. The three plots are cleverly joined through a school library copy of Judy Blume's Forever (Bradbury, 1975), the first young adult novel to deal frankly with teenage sex, where the girls share their stories and post a warning for every other girl who follows. Each learns difficult lessons from their bad-boy experience and come out stronger, proving that a bad boy, in some cases, can be good for a girl. VOYA CODES: 4Q 4P J S (Better than most, marred only by occasional lapses; Broad general YA appeal; Junior High, defined as grades 7 to 9; Senior High, defined as grades 10 to 12). 2006, Wendy Lamb Books/Random House, 240p., and PLB Ages 12 to 18.
—Michele Winship

Children's Literature - Elizabeth Young

Wow! An eye-opening WOW. Is high school just a hunting ground for testosterone-infested young men? Apparently Stone presents that stigma through the eyes of three naive high school girls who learn the hard way that not everyone has their best interest at heart. This title is presented in verse form, so it is a quick read, but that sometimes obscures the characters and dialog. At times it feels as if we need a scorecard to know who is speaking. Follow the adventures and misadventures of Josie, Nicolette, and Aviva and their ‘relationship' with the same boy, and decide which one made the wisest choice—or the choice most similar to yours. One boy, known only as T.L., seems to be interested in only one thing and spares no broken hearts to get it. Parents may shudder at the scenarios that are disclosed, but high school girls will identify with most, if not all, of the heightened emotions and drama. An excellent choice for a girls reading club, but certainly not a wise choice for ‘promiscuous' girls.

School Library Journal

Gr 9 Up-Three girls succumb to the charms of one sexy high school senior and emerge wiser for the experience in this energetic novel in verse. Josie is a self-assured freshman who values her girlfriends over boys until a hot jock focuses his attention on her and her simmering hormones break into a full boil. Confused by her behavior, yet unable to control her desire, she acts out every romantic clich she has ever disdained, until the boy drops her and she experiences the chill of rejection. It is Judy Blume's Forever that sparks Josie's fire again, and finding a few blank pages at the back of the library's copy, she sends a warning to the girls of her school. Next readers meet Nicolette, a junior who sees her sexuality as power. A loner, she's caught by surprise at her own reaction when this popular boy takes notice of her. Suddenly she thinks she sees the difference between sex and love, and then, just as suddenly, he's gone. Finally, Aviva, a pretty, smart, artsy, and funny senior, is stunned when the jock seems to want her. She gives up her virginity, only to be disappointed in both the sex and the boy. Furious, Aviva heads to the library to check out Forever, now crammed with the words of girls who suffered the same fate at the hands of the same boy. The free verse gives the stories a breathless, natural flow and changes tone with each narrator. The language is realistic and frank, and, while not graphic, it is filled with descriptions of the teens and their sexuality. This is not a book that will sit quietly on any shelf; it will be passed from girl to girl to girl.-Susan Oliver, Tampa-Hillsborough Public Library System, FL Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Three high-school girls take turns relating their separate experiences with the same bad boy, a senior jock who seems only interested in one thing: "nailing" them. There's enough in this verse novel to make a grown woman cringe-remembering what it was like back then and that the more things change they stay the same. These narrators, despite their varied backgrounds and ambitions, are interested in, well, the physical realm of boy/girl relations and are willing to kiss and tell: They speak poetry of pedestrian language, which, at its most varied, describes erotic outings and, in one instance, oral sex. High school girls with uncomplicated reading agendas might find this brain candy gratifying. But those with SATs on their minds will find this shallow, repetitive and empty. (Fiction. YA)