The Break-up Bible was fabulous! Exceeded ALL expectations! Wish I had the book here to quote the first paragraph, which was hysterical, but my daughter is reading it.
While the cover is aggressively Pink, and will appeal to those fans, there was so much more going on in this book. Yes, Jen spends the first several chapters in the throes of a massive, drama queen depression after Max dumps her (which was alien to me, but probably will speak to many older girls), but then she slowly moves beyond it.
Since she works for the newspaper, she gets involved in a very intriguing story about race relations in her school-- the administration says there are no problems, but she and a fellow writer (who is African American) notice that minorities are underserved in many honors classes and would just like to start some discussion about why this is. This added some substance to the book without detracting from the Pink enjoyment. A tough balance-- well-done!
I like how her family is involved, her friends are there for her, and while she starts to date another boy, she seems to have learned from the break-up that stuff like that happens, and the only thing to do is to move on.
The only downside is that there is a lot of drinking. Maybe this is a New York City thing. Here in the midwest responsible parents would never take children out to dinner and serve them wine. Hopefully, if a date offerred my daughter sangria, she would reply "My mother would kill me." Gives me pause.
Oh, but the rest was so good, I'm going to have to go with TWO copies. The whole process of coming back from rejection was so well done that I think it is valuable for girls to read. Hoping to hear more from Kantor for many, many years!
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