What is this book I very vaguely remember and thus can only vaguely describe?

October 13, 2009 7:52 PM

Name This Book: Help me figure out the title of a YA novel I read in middle school before I go bonkers!

I read a pretty cheesy young adult novel in 8th grade in 1994, and I'm trying to figure out some details about it.

Here's what I can remember:

There's a female, teen aged protagonist who either goes on summer vacation or visits family during the summer somewhere where there are beaches. I very distinctly remember references to dunes and sand and whatnot. The protagonist is socially awkward or shy or not popular. There is another girl in the story who is popular and snobby but I think she was the only other teenager in the neighborhood, so they hang out. At some point, there is a party and the popular girl goes off with an older boy and is presumably raped by said boy. I think it was first person perspective.

The author was a woman, and I remember the cover of the book having subtle pastel shades and dune grass on it. And the title of the book didn't specifically reference "summer" or anything.

I am NOT thinking about Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson.

I can't believe I'm using an AskMe for this... Help!

posted by santojulieta to shopping (8 comments total)

Also, it was not a series book, so no Sweet Valley High. However, the author had written several other non-serial books; I had read several of her other novels before this one.
posted by santojulieta at 7:53 PM on October 13

This isn't technically a young adult novel, but is it Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? by Lorrie Moore? Looks like it was originally published in 1994...
posted by pluckemin at 8:22 PM on October 13

(From the Amazon page:
"While vacationing in Paris, narrator Berie Carr, whose marriage is stuck in a bleakly funny state of suspended collapse, looks back to her girlhood in Horsehearts, an Adirondack tourist town near the Canadian border. There in the summer of 1972, she was a skinny, 15-year-old misfit who rejected her parents and idolized her sassy, sexually precocious friend Sils, who played Cinderella at a theme park called Storyland where Berie was a cashier. In a series of flashbacks, Berie recounts stealing into bars with Sils; sneaking cigarettes in the shadows of Storyland rides named Memory Lane and The Lost Mine; and how, midway through the summer, she was shipped off to Baptist camp after filching hundreds of dollars from her register to pay for an abortion for Sils.")
posted by pluckemin at 8:29 PM on October 13

The Jellyfish Season? I barely remember it, but I think it sounds similar.
posted by cheesegrater at 8:46 PM on October 13

I am fairly sure you are thinking of Summer Sisters by Judy Blume, even though you don't remember it having summer in the title.
posted by AnnaRat at 10:50 PM on October 13

Sasscat to Win by Paula Boock?
posted by Xere at 11:02 PM on October 13

Summer Sisters might actually have been published too late. But it is almost exactly the same story!
posted by AnnaRat at 2:28 AM on October 14

This sounded like Summer Sisters to me, too. Plot summary here.
posted by girlstyle at 6:51 AM on October 14