★
"Like my mother said, you can't go back to holding hands."
Katherine
is a senior in high school when she meets Michael Wagner at a New Year’s Eve
party. The two quickly begin to spend a
lot of time together and are accompanied by Katherine’s friend Erica and
Michael’s friend Artie. As their
relationship becomes more series, the issue of sex is brought up both on a
physical and emotional level. When
Katherine and Michael finally do have sex for the first time, they promise each
other that they will be together “forever.”
As their senior year draws to a close, they each are forced by their
parents to work summer jobs out of state.
Even though they try to keep their relationship strong by writing letters,
Katherine becomes attracted to a fellow camp instructor and her relationship
with Michael is questioned.
This was one of the few books from the course
that I read as a young adult. I
generally enjoyed reading the book again, and have a different perspective on
the novel reading it as an adult almost ten years later. When I read it as a teenager, I remember
liking the story, but being disappointed that Katherine and Michael broke up in
the end. Now, I appreciated the book for
giving a very realistic portrayal of first love in high school. It didn’t portray Katherine’s first
experience with sex as glamorous as some young adult books do and it also
didn’t leave out details either (I can see why this book is very
controversial!). I also liked that the
story was told from Katherine’s point of view and gave readers a complete since
of her thoughts and emotions as she was going through the relationship with
Michael. I would recommend this book to
others, but with caution. I don’t see
too many boys enjoying the novel and the sexual content makes it potentially
inappropriate for young and less mature students. Since the book was written in the 1970s, it
is also a bit dated and does not include correct information on the importance
of protection during sex from sexually transmitted diseases.
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