Another dead teenager book I came across while looking for something else

[rachelmanija]

It Happened to Nancy, by Anonymous (actually, by Beatrice Sparks, author of many other cautionary tales about dead, anonymous teenagers.)

"From Booklist. Gr. [grades] 7-12. Fourteen-year-old Nancy, an asthmatic, meets 18-year-old Collin, a gentle, caring young man who appears to be the answer to her dreams--until he rapes her, leaving her HIV-infected."

And the moral of this is... don't get raped?

Comments

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

Uh, asthmatics should be careful when falling in love?

I seriously loathe exploitative fiction.

[copperwise.livejournal.com]

Jeez.

I remember that whole genre when I was a kid. The worst one I had was about a girl who ran away to New York to become a model and got scooped up by a pimp right off the bus. Gaaa.

[lesser-panda.livejournal.com]

I remember that one--or one with the same plot, anyway. I can picture the cover. Blonde girl, tight jeans, red shirt? Brick wall in the background?

All of them had titles that were the main character's first name, and they were put out by a religious publisher, iirc.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

Gratuitously Asthmatic would make a great name for a rock band.

[larryhammer]

Heh. Oh yeah baby.

---L.

[klwilliams.livejournal.com]

I think it's don't have asthma.

I learned today that all the Modesty Blaise books have been re-released in trade paperback. Whoot!

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

YAY! I just pre-ordered a couple.

[minnow1212.livejournal.com]

Asthmatic girls should never ever ever ever like anybody.

[veejane.livejournal.com]

The moral of this story is, freeze yourself in carbonite until your 20th birthday. 14-year-old Nancy should be grateful she was not also in a car crash, blinded, forced into a cult, addicted to heroin, and saddled with alcoholic parents.

(Daniel Pinkwater wrote an excellent genre parody called Young Adult Novel, in which anything bad that could happen to a teen did, in order. I think it was published 30 years ago, but it's still very, very relevant.)

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

And we wonder why teenagers love Mary Sues so much...

[seajules]

I think the moral of the story is don't trust anybody, especially if you're a teenage girl. Especially if you're a teenage girl in less than perfect physical health, which...I don't think I have ever known any who are, puberty being what it is.

The other moral seems to be that alarmism is not dead.

[thomasyan.livejournal.com]

The moral is, if you're an asthmatic girl, you need a mother who calls you every 30 minutes on your cell phone and doesn't allow you to post on the Web?