Shelf Discovery

by Lizzie Skurnick

A positive review in EW led me to this “reading memoir” of “the teen classics we never stopped reading.”

On the plus side, Skurnick writes about some of Judy Blume’s novels, which were my favorites. And she also tempted me with some titles that I haven’t read, but will read in the future.

On the minus side, a lot of the books reviewed are not “young adult” in content or targeted audience. Several of the books would be classified as “juvenile.” Also, Skurnick spends a lot of time (and pages) on Madeleine L’Engle (meh) and Lois Duncan (you’ve read one, you’ve read them all).

And one more thing: the writing is sloppy. I found many errors, including the incorrect publication date of a novel. Ugh! So not as good as it should have been.

9/13/09